


Fallingforyou

by rickyling



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Desus in Future Chapters, Friends to Lovers, Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Recreational Drug Use, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-28
Updated: 2017-07-18
Packaged: 2018-11-06 01:48:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 27,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11026062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rickyling/pseuds/rickyling
Summary: They meet in an English class in Freshman year. Rick doesn't know Daryl, but Daryl knows Rick, and their first kiss tastes like weed, strawberries, and blood.They'll be okay.





	1. Freshman Year

**Author's Note:**

> So if you've been following me on twitter (@daryldjxon), you've probably seen me complaining/talking about the progress of this fic. It's four chapters, one chapter for each year in high school, and I've been planning it out for a few weeks. The first and second chapters are done, with the third well on its way, so I'll probably update twice a week? 
> 
> As always, mistakes are my own. As always, trigger warnings for child abuse and mental health issues, which usually come with stories about Daryl Dixon. 
> 
> Weee

They meet on the first day of freshman year in an English class Rick dreads taking. 

They’re all assigned to the same desk clump, in the back left corner, the furthest from the door but the closest to the windows. Most of them Rick knows by name, but there’s one he doesn’t. He knows Maggie Greene, who’s exceptionally beautiful and seems to be the only one in the world who didn’t go through an embarrassing phase in eighth grade. Carol Peletier is familiar, too, and he had classes with Glenn Rhee throughout middle school. The stranger is seated right next to him: long, dirty blond hair, a backwards hat, scars and freckles and band-aids across his scowling face. Rick’s seen him around, sure, it's both the blessing and curse of living in a small town, but his name is unknown. 

“Daryl,” He introduces himself when it’s his turn to do so, egged on by the teacher. “Dixon.” Oh, Rick knows that name. Only in brief passing, in instructions on which house to not ride his bike by. It explained the cuts and bruises, the cigarette smell, the way Glenn angles his body away just slightly. 

Daryl doesn’t want to be here, he makes that perfectly clear from the start. The teacher strides around the room, ranting about course expectations and the books they’ll be reading. She knows the Dixon name, too, and Daryl tilts up his chin defiantly when she pauses by his desk, her fingertips grazing the surface of it when she lists off the various behaviors that won’t be tolerated in her classroom. Daryl grins at each one, sharp teeth poking out of chapped lips, no doubt making a mental note of each one. They make eye contact, and she moves along. 

Mrs. Bucken isn’t unfair, nor is she a horrible person. She releases their reins after her spiel is finished, allows, and even encourages, them to talk quietly amongst themselves. 

“This class will only work if we all get along,” She explains, eyes on Daryl. “Introduce yourselves, make friends. High school begins now.”

Daryl spits at her turned back. 

Maggie lays across her outstretched arms, irritation contorting her pretty face. “As if we don’t already know each other,” She mutters. “There’s only, like, a thousand kids in this school.” She scans the group through narrowed eyes until her attention lands on Daryl. “What’s your deal, then?”

“My  _ deal _ ?” Daryl echoes, eyebrows raised. “What’s  _ yours _ ?”

Maggie straightens to match Daryl’s eye line, chest puffed out in challenge. “You know mine. I grew up on a farm with my Catholic father breathing down my neck and I learned how to ride horses before learning how to walk. And if you even  _ think  _ about hitting on me I’ll kick your nu-”

Daryl interrupts her with a sneer. “Oh, sweetheart, don’t worry. You ain’t my type.”

Maggie’s face goes from surprised to insulted. Daryl smirks. 

“Uh,” Glenn speaks up, breaking the tension surrounding Maggie and Daryl’s staredown. “I-I’m Glenn. I have two sisters, they’re twelve - y’know, twins - and I, uh, like playing video games.”

Carol chimes in next, her voice smooth and quiet and in such stark contrast to everyone around her. “I’m Carol and I don’t really know anything about myself.” They all laugh. She blushes and hides her smile behind her hand, tucking her chin to her chest. 

They all turn to Rick expectantly. He scratches the back of his neck. “Uh, I’m Rick Grimes. My dad’s the sheriff of the county.”

Everyone nods, it’s old news, but Rick doesn’t miss the fleeting hint of fear in Daryl’s blue eyes before they go dark and emotionless again. They don’t talk for a while, Maggie showing Carol some notes scribbled in a notebook and Glenn pulling out a portable gaming system, tongue poking out in concentration as his thumbs work to fight fictional enemies. Daryl picks at a peeling band-aid on his face, grimacing when the adhesive grip tugs on his skin. 

Rick tilts his head, examining the red scratch he can see peeking out of it. “How’d you bust up your face?” He asks, line of sight going from the cut to the bruises under the boy’s eyes. 

Daryl hesitates, fingers pausing, staring at Rick, considering. Slowly, he says: “Fell off my bike.”

“Must’ve been a nasty bail,” Rick comments, eyes wide. 

“Yeah, it was sick.”

“Sounds sick,” Rick agrees. Daryl is smiling at him, a bit lopsided and showing off his crooked teeth. “So I guess we’re kinda stuck with each other for the rest of the semester, huh?” He was talking directly to Daryl, but at that point, the whole group was paying attention to their conversation, no doubt wondering how Rick manages to crack Daryl’s hard exterior. 

“Seems like,” Daryl says, still grinning. 

Maggie sighs. “Might as well make the most of it.”

The bell ringing punctuates her bold statement, and the rest of the class files out like a hoard, pushing and shoving to meet up with friends and groan about how they missed summer. The five of them hold back, hovering by their desk clump. 

Daryl looks at them, backpack slung over one shoulder, and asks: “Do any of you smoke?”

None of them smoke, but they still join Daryl under the bleachers during lunch. It's chilly, the leaves turning red and orange and yellow, and Daryl lights a cigarette that he dug out of his back pocket while everyone sits crisscross and eat their lunch. 

“You don't have food?” Carol asks. Daryl shakes his head, shrugging, and takes another drag. “Here.” She holds out a tasteless french fry. Daryl eyes it like it might attack him, but he eventually takes it, munching on it around the smoke. 

Glenn has all their schedules laid out on the ground in front of them, comparing and searching for any other shared classes. “Rick, we have chemistry together first block, I didn’t even see you. Maggie and Carol, you two have second block Algebra together? Daryl, you and Rick have last block Algebra together. That’s about it.”

Rick passes his plate of food over to Daryl, silently offering him his fries. “Could be worse.”

His new friends hum in agreement. Daryl crushes out his cigarette with the heel of his boot and continues stuffing his face with food. Glenn watches him with a scrunched up nose, rolling his eyes. 

“When did you start smoking?” Maggie asks. 

Daryl pauses to think. “When I was nine.”

“What the hell?” Maggie gasps, baffled. “Why so young?”

“My whole family was doin’ it.” Daryl shrugs nonchalantly. “There was always cigs around. Jus’ picked one up one day and no one stopped me.”

“Your life is crazy,” Rick says, half-joking, half-not.

Daryl grins. “You don’t know the half of it.”

* * *

 

The first book they're assigned is  _ Ethan Frome _ . It's paperback, no more than a hundred or so pages, but the text is tiny and Daryl squints down at it as he flips through it. Maggie reads the description on the back out loud and they all groan at the same time. It's about an affair in a small Massachusetts town that no doubt ends in tragedy. 

“This sounds boring as shit!” Daryl exclaims, hands in the air. 

The teacher ignores him, rambling on about the different themes and motifs they'd come across in their readings. Carol is already invested in it, eyebrows furrowed as she reads through the yellow pages. 

“Your final essay,” Mrs. Bucken is saying, “will be on whether or not this story is a personal or social tragedy. We will have various discussions. If you wish to not partake in those, you can instead answer the question in an essay of no less than five thousand words.” The class releases pained moans and a couple heads hit the desks, Daryl’s being one of them. “Now, get reading!”

Glenn dives right in, determined to catch up to Carol, while Rick tries his hardest to focus around Maggie tapping her pen and Daryl’s motionless body beside him. 

“You can already guess how this ends,” Maggie mutters, pen stilling. “You know, tragically. That's how it always is in literature. Relationships that begin in spring or summer always end happy, and relationships that begin in fall or winter end in tragedy.” 

Daryl snorts. “That leaves us fucked, huh?”

“Don't swear.” Glenn frowns, looking up. “What do you mean?”

Daryl peers up from under his bangs. “We met in the fall.” 

“C’mon,” Maggie complains. “It doesn't work in real life.”

Daryl shrugs, unconvinced, and lays his head back down. Rick’s pretty sure he falls asleep. 

Rick manages to get through the first chapter of  _ Ethan Frome _ , but he nearly loses consciousness in the process. As expected, there wasn't much action going on in Massachusetts in the early 1900s. Carol and Glenn are discussing it when the bell rings for lunch.

“It seems more like a social tragedy,” Glenn says, weaving through the crowded hallways. “It's such a small town, everything is everyone's business.”

Carol shakes her head. “I disagree. Ethan’s such a private guy…” Their voices fade out into the background as they enter the loud cafeteria, getting mixed in with the buzzing hum of dozens of teenagers screaming and whooping. 

Daryl moves closer to Rick and Maggie when they go through a particularly thick throng of people, grumbling under his breath. He hovers outside the lunch lines while they grab their food, glaring as people pass by him and messing with the assistant principal. 

“C’mon, man,” Rick hears Daryl say as he approaches. The boy is smiling, a shark-like thing, leaning against the monitor’s shoulder. “Lemme take smoke breaks.”

“No way, Daryl.” Luckily, his tone is light-hearted, tinted with amusement as he nudges Daryl back towards Rick. “Go eat lunch ― and no going outside!”

Daryl leads them outside anyway, the shit-eating grin still on his face. They sit in a jagged circle, picking at the not-so-appetizing food on their styrofoam trays while Daryl lights a cigarette, foot tapping quickly. The smaller his cigarette becomes, the slower his foot goes, until it still completely, the nicotine calming his nerves. 

“I can’t wait to read  _ The Catcher in the Rye _ ,” Maggie says, eyeing her copy of  _ Ethan Frome _ like it might jump out at her. “Everyone says it’s the best book you’ll read in high school.” 

Rick hums, having heard positive things about the novel from upperclassmen. “From what I’ve been told, you either love it or hate it ― no in between.”

“You don’t read that til Junior year, though,” Glenn says. “Unless you wanna read it on your own.”

Everyone laughs, already at the age where reading books in your free time was more a myth than a reality. In middle school, it was more common, but by high school they grew out of it, preferring to spend time doing less than ideal activities. Most of them, anyway: Carol and Glenn still seemed invested in it. Daryl fishes around in his pocket, tongue poking out. He finds what he’s looking for after a few seconds, a crumpled cigarette, and places it between his teeth.

“No, c’mon,” Rick chastises, going to pluck it from his mouth. “One cigarette is bad enough, you’re not smoking two in five minutes.”

“I won’t light it,” Daryl says. “I jus’ wanna chew on it. Anxiety thing.”

Rick’s eyes flicker down to Daryl’s nailbeds, chewed down and bloody. “Okay, but don’t light it.”

“You got it, Mom.”

In the distance, the bell rings. Daryl sighs, body limp, while the group packs up their stuff. He stays seated as they all stand, watching a leaf get tossed around by the wind. Rick nudges him, offering out his hand, gently coaxing. 

“Nah, I’ma stay out here,” Daryl says. He glances at Rick. “Stay with me?”

Rick rolls his eyes. “Daryl, no. We can’t miss class.”

“ _ Yes _ we can,” Daryl argues, tugging on Rick’s hand. To the departing group, he calls: “See y’all later!” 

Their friends wave, slightly confused, but trudge off in the direction of the school anyway. Rick admits defeat and sits back down next to Daryl, figuring if he was going to skip a block, it might as well be the last one. Daryl keeps chewing on his cigarette. He is unmoving beside Rick, minus his mouth, knees tucked up by his chest and the skin of his knees pink where they were exposed to the cold air by torn fabric. His sweatshirt, black and a couple sizes too big, is littered with holes as well. Rick stares at them, seeing only pale strips of skin. Daryl isn’t wearing anything under it. 

“Aren’t you cold?” Rick asks, eyes still on the holes.

Daryl shrugs. “Nah.” He spares Rick a glance, one eyebrow raised. “Are you?”

“No.” Rick’s lie is known when there’s a gust of wind that makes his spine go rigid, the cold air cutting through his jacket and raising goosebumps on his skin. Daryl  _ must _ be cold. 

But he shows no evidence of such, just grins in delight until Rick shivers and presses closer. Daryl goes still, uncomfortable under Rick’s sudden weight. Before Rick can pull back and apologize, though, Daryl’s arm goes around his hips and keeps him in place. Rick blinks in surprise, cheek pressed against Daryl’s surprisingly soft shoulder. 

“Sorry,” The boy murmurs. “Jus’ scared me. You can stay.”

Rick makes a content noise in his throat, nuzzling into Daryl’s warmth. The boy was a furnace, radiating heat and comfort, seemingly unaffected by the chilly autumn air. 

“How come we've never known about each other til this year?” Rick asks, eyes closed and lost in his own world. 

Daryl snorts. “I knew about you. Like you said, your daddy was a cop, you were best friends with Shane Walsh ‘cause his daddy was friends with your daddy, and you dated Lori Williams up until this past summer when she cheated on you with Shane.” Rick is sitting up now, frowning, confused. Daryl shrugs. “I knew you. You jus’ didn't know me.” 

“That's not true,” Rick argues. “If we’re talking in terms of knowing  _ about  _ each other, I knew  _ about  _ you―”

“No,” Daryl deadpans. “You knew about my family. You knew the Dixon name. You didn't know  _ me _ . It's not the same.” 

“How is that my fault?”

“I never said it was.”

Rick hesitates, watching Daryl’s expression before saying: “Well, I wanna know you.” Daryl blinks, taken aback, and if he was thrown before, he's absolutely stunned when Rick rests his head back down, exhaling into his neck. “You're stuck with me.” 

“Guess so.” 

Daryl goes digging around in his pocket again until he finds his lighter, hands trembling as he goes to light the abused cigarette. The end refused to light, the tobacco no doubt dry and stale, the filter too moist from being shoved in Daryl’s mouth for so long. He curses, the lighter fumbling to the ground, his reflexes too slow to grab it in time. 

“Colder than I thought,” Daryl murmurs offhandedly. Rick picks up the lighter for him, it’s black with the words “ _ Fuck off” _ carved into the side, messy and almost indistinguishable. 

“Did you do that?” Rick asks, handing it back.

“Nah, I think I stole it from a kid who stole it from another kid who probably stole it from another kid.” Daryl smiles at the story, turning the lighter over in his hand, tracing the carving over the love-lines on his palm. “Don’t think I’ve ever actually  _ bought  _ a lighter in my life.” He chuckles, shoulders shaking in mirth. “Just steal ‘em from people.”

“The lighter industry is failing because of you,” Rick jokes, earning himself more laughter. 

“Yeah…” 

Rick watches him for a moment, watches him shove the cigarette back into his pocket and pick at the rip in his jeans. “Where are you going after this?” Rick asks, painfully away of time dragging on. 

Daryl eyes him, searching for an ulterior motive, no doubt. “Home,” He says. “I’ll probably try and suffer through  _ Ethan Frome _ or something.”

“Mm,” Rick agrees. “Can't be that bad.”

“Yes, it can.”

“You're absolutely right ― it can. Can't wait.” 

“Yeah…” Daryl says, eyes on a bird a few feet away from them pecking at crumbs. “Can't wait.”

* * *

 

The first few weeks of high school go past in a blur. They have five or six discussions about  _ Ethan Frome _ , all of which Daryl opts out of. He sits by himself in the corner of the classroom, hood up and head bent, scribbling out the answers to questions in long essays. The first time he gets a grade back, everyone ― Mrs. Bucken included ― is shocked to see the A+ inked in red at the top corner. Even Daryl blinked in disbelief, handling the paper cautiously, like it was going to explode.

“Good work,” Mrs. B had said, sounding genuine. “Keep it up.” 

Daryl keeps it up. For the most part, anyway. 

They finish  _ Frome  _ on a Friday, a warm day despite the month. Halloween is a handful of weeks away and spirits are high, the five of them skipping out to the bleachers come lunch time, high on finishing the most  _ boring  _ book ever.

“Social tragedy or personal tragedy?” Maggie mocks, hand dramatically throw across her forehead. “A fucking  _ boring  _ tragedy, I don’t give a shit.” 

Today, Daryl has lunch money. He got a job at a cafe alongside Carol, and was slowly learning how to be responsible with his checks. “Ethan’s a bitch,” He declares. “And I wanna punch him in the face.” 

“His wife was the problem,” Carol argues. 

“Fake feminist,” Daryl tosses back.

“Shut the hell up, asshole.” 

Everyone laughs. Everything's okay. 

Rick leans against Daryl’s shoulder just like he did every day, listening to him dive into a lengthy conversation about the novel. Rick avoids mentioning that for a group of people who apparently hate the book with a burning passion, they sure do spend a lot of time talking about it. He smiles to himself at the thought, biting at his lip and adjusting his head.

“What’s so funny,” Daryl asks, noticing the grin on his face.

“Nothing,” Rick lies. “You're just so cute.”

“Fuck yourself, man.” 

The bell rings and their friends gather up their trash and belongings. Maggie pauses, looking over her shoulder at Rick and Daryl. “Y'all staying out here?” She knew their routine by now, but she still checks every day.

“Yep,” Rick answers. 

“Okay, have fun.” 

No one ever asks what they do when they skip their last block, which is at least once a week. It's easy to assume: talk and smoke. Rick talks, Daryl smokes. This time, Daryl has something different in mind.

“You ever try weed?” Daryl asks, as if Rick didn't cringe at the sight of cigarettes every day. 

Rick snorts. “Of course not!” 

Daryl raises his eyebrows, exposing his cornflower blue irises from their normal hiding spot under his bangs. “You wanna?” He’s already digging around in his backpack, retrieving a small baggy and a strange looking object. Noticing Rick’s confused look, he says: “It's a bowl.”

“I dunno…”

“You could try shotgunning?” Daryl offers. Almost like it was second nature, Daryl empties the weed onto his phone screen, using his thumb and forefinger to grind it up. Then, he wets the pad of his finger with his tongue, just slightly, and scoops up the weed, packing the bowl. Rick watches, mesmerized, and almost forgets he has no idea what Daryl just asked him. 

“What is that?” 

“Shotgunning?” Daryl looks up; Rick nods. “I inhale the smoke and breathe it into your mouth, then you inhale.” He shrugs, bowl in one hand, black lighter in the other. 

Without waiting for Rick to answer, he tilts the flame downwards towards the weed, inhaling until the hidden red cherry under the herb disappears, then exhaling a cloud of white smoke. Rick notes that he tilts his head upwards and away from Rick, considerate despite his previous offer. Daryl glances at him, gesturing gently with the bowl, head cocked in question.

Rick scooches forwards slightly. “D-do it again.” 

Daryl goes through the motions again, this time releasing a breathy sigh around the smoke. His head is still craned back, exposing the long length of his neck, the tendons twitching. Rick suddenly can't breathe.

“Wanna try now?” Daryl asks, somewhat raspy, coughing just slightly. “Shotgunning, I mean.”

“Yeah,” Rick says. He’s practically in Daryl’s lap now, watching the fading embers instead of Daryl’s face.

“Okay.” 

The bowl was still lit, enough for Daryl to inhale deeply and hold it in his mouth. As one, they move closer to each other, lips almost touching, lips parted, as Daryl exhales gently and Rick inhales. It's, to say the very least, unexpected.

Rick yanks back, coughing up a lung, while Daryl almost falls onto his back laughing. Rick struggles to recover, simultaneously coming up with a slew of names to call Daryl when he got his voice back. The boy in question was cracking up, having to put the bowl down to avoid spilling it.

“Fuck you,” Rick croaks weakly.

Daryl wipes tears out of his eyes. “Aw, c’mon Ricky. You did great, c’mon, lighten up.”

What  _ really  _ pisses Rick off it that he's not pissed off at Daryl at all. He looks so good, smiling with his teeth showing, hair messy, band-aids on his face tugging in protest at his crinkling cheeks. Rick stares at him, listening to him try and stifle his giggles, remembering how close they'd been just seconds before…

“Kiss me,” Rick says before he can stop himself.

Daryl freezes. “What?”

“Kiss me.”

Daryl gaps at him for only another half of a second before suddenly Rick’s mouth is being smothered. 

It's certainly not the  _ best  _ kiss Rick’s ever had. Daryl’s lips are chapped, wet from being bitten and licked. He tastes like smoke and strawberries, and like copper blood, and the way he moves his mouth lacks any real rhythm or skill. Rick is obsessed with it. He never wants it to stop. It stops. 

“Why’d you stop,” Rick gasps, head spinning, not completely registering what just happened. Daryl is staring at him through narrowed eyes, considering.

Then, Daryl’s leaning in again. It's better, still not perfect. Their noses bump, their teeth brush, but Daryl’s hand has found its way out of his lap and onto Rick’s face, holding him still, as if he was afraid Rick was going to dart away. His fears are for naught: Rick isn't going anywhere, maybe ever again. 

Rick does find himself in Daryl’s lap eventually, tightening his grip on the soft hairs at the nape of his neck when their tongues brush. Daryl’s lips move from Rick’s own down to Rick’s neck, mouth and teeth attacking the sensitive skin. Rick sighs softly, face nuzzling into Daryl’s shoulder, and then they still, panting into the shared air. 

“Gotta smoke the rest of this bowl,” Daryl says, lips against the shell of Rick’s ear. “Wanna help?”

“Only if we get to kiss more.”

“Of course.”

So they smoke and they kiss, and it tastes like weed and blood and strawberries, and neither of them would change it for the world.

* * *

 

Daryl’s not as skilled in math as he is in English, they figure that out pretty quick. He's good at it, sure. He's a smart kid. The problem is that he's  _ lazy  _ and refuses to do anything but stare at Rick the entire class on the rare occasion they actually go. 

“You need a tutor,” Rick declares when he sees the  _ D  _ scribbled on top of Daryl’s test paper ― the third one in two months. 

“You be my tutor,” Daryl offers, sounding bored and uninterested. He doodles a star on Rick’s hand, then swipes his thumb over it, watching the ink smudge. 

Rick thinks about it. “Okay. Come over tonight?” 

Daryl straightens. “Oh really?”

“To do  _ math _ ,” Rick clarifies, tapping the tip of Daryl’s nose with the eraser on the end of his pencil. 

“Ugh, you're the worst.” Daryl slumps again. “I have work ‘til seven,” He says. “I’ll come over after?” 

“I'll pick you up,” Rick agrees, scooping up Daryl’s hand and pressing a quick kiss to the knuckles. Daryl grins, lopsided and showing his teeth. “Only if you get me a free brownie, though.”

Daryl’s eyes go dramatically wide, faux offense on his face. His free hand slaps against his chest. “You want me to  _ steal _ ? Rick, please, I have a reputation to keep up.” 

Rick shakes his head, laughing. “Right.”

Daryl giggles, burying his face in the crook of his elbow. The teacher continues to ramble on, ignorant to their conversation and distractions. They sit by the window, just like they do in English, but it’s just them in their small corner. Outside, snowflakes drift down, melting as soon as they hit the ground. It wouldn’t stick, not for a while, not so early in November. The months continue to speed by, far too fast for Rick’s liking or Daryl’s mental health. Lately, he’d been slacking, avoiding school work and staying home whenever he got the chance. “It’s a thing,” Daryl insists. “Seasonal depression, or whatever. I dunno.”

Rick had made a mental note to keep an eye on him.

But that was months ago when the days just started getting colder and shorter and the shackles just found their way around Daryl’s ankles. Rick assumed, based on no prior knowledge, that come Christmas time Daryl would perk up. Now, Daryl watches the snow outside with a blank expression, tapping his pen rhythmically and not noticing how Rick stares. 

“Hey,” Rick says, catching his attention again. 

“Hey,” Daryl replies, teeth poking out of the corner of his grin. 

Rick bites his bottom lip. “You okay?”

Daryl blinks at him, innocent confusion on his face. “What? Yeah, of course.”

Rick exhales, hoping the smile on his face looked convincing enough. “Okay, just checking.”

After studying Rick’s face for a few long, drawn out seconds, Daryl turns back to the window.  _ You better not be lying, dickhead. _ Rick thinks, considering pressing his lips to Daryl’s knuckles again. But their conversation had turned a few heads, and they weren’t public yet, so he had no choice but to go back to his work and let Daryl ponder the snow by himself.

* * *

 

Rick arrives at the coffee shop at 6:45, hovering at the back of the line trying to spot his boy. Daryl is behind the counter, a black t-shirt stretched across his shoulders and an olive-green apron slung on his neck. Carol is dressed similarly, except with a skirt instead of black jeans. Daryl spots him and grins. Rick waves, taking a seat at a table near the fake fireplace. 

“Hey, sport,” A waitress greets. Rick knows her, she goes to their school, too. Rosita Espinosa is jaw-droppingly beautiful, even at fifteen, with clear skin, full lips, and dark beige skin. “Can I get you anything?” 

Rick shakes his head, watching in his peripheral Daryl clock out and yank the apron over his head. “No, thank you. Just waiting for Daryl.” 

“Right.” Rosita’s lips quirk in a smile. Daryl joins them hastily, a small paper bag in his hand. “Hey. What's that?”

“Brownie for Rick,” Daryl says. “You gonna tell on me?”

Rosita rolls her eyes, tone light, hand on Daryl’s bicep. “Fuck no. See ya later.”

“Bye, Rose.” Daryl turns to Rick, handing him the brownie. “Hey.”

“Hey.” Rick stands, smiling, pressing a kiss to Daryl’s cheek. “How was work?”

Daryl shrugs. “Fine. Let's go study.” 

They slide into Rick’s car, Daryl’s hand automatically switching on the radio. He finds a station with classic rock throwbacks and puts it on low so it's more background noise than anything else. Daryl dismisses his seatbelt, instead opting to bend one leg at the knee and hug it to his chest. 

“You good?” Rick asks, alternating between watching the road and watching Daryl.

“Yeah,” Daryl says. He adjusts himself so he's facing Rick more, switching which leg is bent. “I've never met your parents before. Or been to your house.”

Rick blinks. “Oh yeah. It’ll be fine, they'll love you.” Daryl doesn't look convinced. “Hey, Dare. They’ll love you.” 

They don't talk for the rest of the drive back to Rick’s house. Daryl stays watching the world flash by out the window, a thumbnail in his mouth and his knees to his chest. A few times, Rick considers reaching out, placing a hand anywhere just to maintain some contact or offer comfort. He doesn't. He grips the steering wheel and wonders if he’ll ever meet Daryl’s parents.

Rick lives on a dead end street, the very last house. His lawn is neatly trimmed beyond the white picket fence, he has a porch with a swing and a forest in the backyard. It's more of a  _ wood _ , actually ― it's not quite big enough to be a forest. Daryl stares in wonder when they pull into the driveway. The sun has dipped behind the trees, the sky is mostly dark with a hint of orange struggling to stay lit. It's beautiful, really. 

“C’mon,” Rick says, nudging him gently. “We’re studying.” 

They meet at the hood of the car and Daryl stops Rick, an unreadable expression on his face. “We’re  _ friends _ ,” He says. “Just friends.”

Rick blinks, then understands. “Okay. Just friends.” 

“Okay.” 

With Daryl half a pace behind Rick, they step through the front door. Daryl looks around, wary, on edge, subconsciously taking a step towards Rick so their shoulders brush. Rick doesn't mention it.

“Mom!” Rick calls.

“Rick!” His mother is a bright woman, she envelops him in a hug as soon as he's over the threshold. “Who's your friend?”

“Mom, this is Daryl.” Rick steps back, showing Daryl in all his glory. His mother is good at pretending she doesn't notice all the cuts and bruises, much to Rick’s ― and no doubt Daryl’s ― appreciation. 

“Hello, dear! Lovely to meet you!” 

“Hello, ma'am,” Daryl says, voice small. Rick comes to his rescue.

“We’re gonna go study.” Rick tugs on Daryl’s elbow. “Bye, Mom.”

“Do you want any snacks?” His mom asks, already moving towards the kitchen. 

“No, thank you!” Rick insists, shoving Daryl up the stairs. “Thanks, Mom, bye.”

Rick’s room is small, quiet. The theme, established by his mother before he was even born, is dark blue. The bedspread, curtains, and rug are all shades of navy, even the lamp that Rick turns on. He thinks it’s more  _ indigo _ , but everyone else disagrees. He makes a mental note to ask Daryl about it one day.

“What time do you have to be home?” Rick asks, tossing his bag on the ground. He sits on the edge of the bed, excited to eat his brownie, already tearing into the paper.

Daryl doesn’t answer right away; he’s walking around Rick’s room, looking at pictures and little league trophies and old toys. The acoustic guitar that Rick got for his eleventh birthday catches his eye. Rick never learned to play it, if the thin layer of dust over the surface was any indication. Daryl smiles down at it, thumbing over the strings. A pretty noise follows his fingers. He moves on, a complete circle around the room. Rick watches him and munches on the brownie. 

Finally, Daryl stops in front of Rick. Looking at a framed picture on Rick’s nightstand instead of Rick himself, Daryl answers: “I don’t wanna go home.”

Rick pauses. It’s Thursday, a school night. “Daryl…” 

“Please.” Daryl’s voice is so, so quiet. 

It’s 8 o’clock. They study and they don’t talk about it. Daryl is a quick learner when he wants to be. To Rick’s surprise, he focuses on the lesson Rick is reviewing. He chews on his bottom lip and taps his foot. Rick wants to kiss him, but his bedroom door is open and his mom peers in every once in awhile. 

“Is Daryl staying for dinner?” She asks on her third visit. “Dad will be home soon.”

Rick and Daryl exchange glances. “Uh, yeah,” Rick says, and Daryl nods. “Um, can he sleep over, too? We just have so much to go over…”

His mother hesitates. Daryl stops breathing. 

“Yes, if it’s okay with his parents,” She decides. Daryl exhales. “Get him a sleeping bag, okay?”

“Got it,” Rick says to her. She shuts the door when she leaves, and as her footsteps fade down the hallway, Rick turns to Daryl. “Sleeping bag is just a formality. You can sleep in my bed if you want.”

Daryl is kissing him. Rick kisses back, more than happy to do so. Daryl’s hands comb through Rick’s curls, making him purr in delight and break the kiss to arch further into the touch. Daryl laughs, lips on Rick’s cheeks, forehead, nose, jaw, neck. Rick realizes when his lips are by his ear that he’s been reciting,  _ thank you, thank you, thank you _ . Rick doesn’t say you’re welcome.

* * *

 

Sheriff Grimes recognizes Daryl right off the bat. He comes home when everyone’s already seated at the table, full plates of steak and various vegetables in front of them. The door slams, announcing his arrival and halting the conversation. When he walks in, his eyes immediately go to Daryl, and his brows raise at the same time Daryl’s entire body slouches in his chair. 

“Mom said you were having a friend over,” Rick’s dad says in his booming voice. “I didn’t think it’d be a Dixon.” Daryl growls, deep in his throat, and Rick considers putting him in a chokehold to restrain him. Rick’s dad only smiles, raising his hands in surrender. “Relax, kid. I’m…  _ familiar  _ with your dad and brother, you look like them, that’s the only reason I knew who you were. You look more like your mom, though.”

Daryl relaxes just slightly, still on edge. 

After that, dinner goes surprisingly well. Daryl and Rick’s father avoid speaking to each other (Daryl avoids speaking altogether). Rick keeps trying to prompt him into talking, like when his mother asks about his job and how he likes his classes. Daryl only talks about  _ Ethan Frome  _ when he's asked if he hated it as much as Rick did. 

“It was too predictable,” Daryl says, talking with his hands. Rick’s parents listen, intrigued, slightly put off. Daryl only speaks about books. “The writing style was bland, the plot structure was weak ―  _ ugh _ it was just the worst!” 

“You got an  _ A+  _ on your essay, though,” Rick points out, proudly nudging his shoulder. His parents exchange a disbelieving look.

Daryl hides under his bangs again, hands pressed together between his thighs, teeth working on his bottom lip. “Yeah, I did.” He doesn't talk for the rest of the night. 

By the time it's over and Rick and Daryl manage to slip upstairs, it's 10 o’clock and Daryl’s mouth is splitting into a huge yawn. “My dad’s gonna kill me,” He says, watching Rick pull back the sheets and blankets. Rick ignores him, adjusts the pillows and feels Daryl swaying in place behind him. “My dad’s gonna kill me.” 

Rick lays down first and Daryl crawls over him, sniffling. They tangle their limbs instantly, Daryl curling into Rick’s side and Rick’s fingers twisting into Daryl’s hair. Lazy excuses for goodnight kisses are shared until both of them are more asleep than awake. They sleep.

* * *

 

Rick’s alarm clock wakes him at 5:00 on the dot. The sheets beside him are cold, creased; there are lines on Rick’s skin from these creases, these mountain ranges on his bed. Daryl is gone. Replacing him is a gaping hole in Rick’s bed and heart. He glances around, in search of a note or a sign, anything that might offer an explanation, but there is none. Daryl is just gone. 

Daryl doesn’t show up at school, either. 

Maggie is nervous, Glenn is on edge, Rick is numb, Carol is… different. It’s like she knows something they don’t, and the disappearance of Daryl in the night is concerning, but not surprising. When Rick explains, everyone becomes worried and panic; Carol is cool, calm. Tranquil. English class is empty, English class is scary, Daryl’s desk is lonely. 

Mrs. Bucken notices his absence, too. “Where’s Daryl?” She asks, pausing mid-lecture to address the desk clump in the corner. Rick exchanges glances with the rest of them, getting shrugs in return.

“We don’t know.”

Her frown deepens. “Well, catch him up on what we go over, okay?”

Rick agrees because he has no choice but to. He doesn’t know when he’ll see Daryl again. Maggie, Glenn, and Carol remain silent through the exchange and the rest of the class until the bell rings. For the first time since the first day of school, they eat lunch in the cafeteria. 

The next day, Daryl comes back to school. 

Rick thinks the floor will open up underneath Daryl’s feet and swallow him whole. It doesn’t.

Daryl is wearing a black sweater, the one with holes in it, the hood tucked up over his head. It does a good job hiding his hair, but his face is still visible. The bruises are still visible, purple and green and red under his eyes and swelling his cheek. His mouth is small, clenched shut in ― what, pain? No one knows for sure because he doesn’t talk, or he can’t talk, and he doesn’t kiss Rick, or he can’t. 

“The hell happened to you?” Glenn asks, fear making him agitated. Daryl looks at him under a curtain of dirty blond hair and doesn’t reply. Foolish Glenn. “Where were you?”

Carol slams the cover of her book shut, loud and clanging the desk. They are in English class, halfway through  _ The Great Gatsby  _ unit. Daryl thinks this book is boring, too. He thinks Nick and Gatsby are in love. Glenn’s attention is diverted from Daryl to Carol, who he glares at, irritated. 

“Leave him alone,” Carol snaps. “It’s none of your business.”

“It’s my business when my friend is missing from school and comes back looking like he’s been jumped―” 

Daryl makes a noise, a fruitful attempt at breaking up the tension. Voice rough, throat sore, eyes red with threatening tears, Daryl says: “My mom died.”

There is silence. It’s suffocating. Daryl is waiting for someone to say something, sitting on the edge of his seat, chewing on his bottom lip like he does. Glenn is pale, drained of color, drained of words, tongue parched. Carol looks away; Maggie reaches out, her hand on top of Daryl’s. Rick stares at him, hearing only his own pounding heart, praying someone will say something. 

The bell rings. Daryl runs. 

They run after him, all four of them sprinting down the hallway after a ghost. Teachers join them with longer legs and faster strides and not even they catch him. Rick, underneath his panic, is impressed: for a kid who smokes so much, Daryl certainly can run. Maybe he should join the track team.

Daryl runs right past the bleachers, and he keeps running, and he doesn’t stop, but everyone chasing him has to. They’re out of breath and Daryl won’t stop. Rick doesn’t remember when he started screaming Daryl’s name, but he knows his throat hurts and he forgets every word except  _ Daryl _ .

“He’ll be fine,” Carol is saying, her voice a mantra, her voice a plea to the sky. “By tomorrow, by Monday, he’ll be fine.”

* * *

 

Daryl is found a few hours later, but it’s not ideal. He isn’t found at a park on the swings, cooling down on his own accord, he isn’t found at home, in his bed, warm and asleep. He isn’t even found cowering in an alley, smoking a cigarette, arms wrapped around himself. They expected to find him in one of these positions, not in the flooded yellow circle of a streetlight, a wild expression on his face and cops surrounding him on all sides. 

The bizarre thing is, no one seems mad at Daryl. When Rick arrives at the scene alongside his father, all the officers are completely calm, standing a few yards back from Daryl. On the ground at Daryl’s feet, there’s a pack of cigarettes and a bottle of vodka, no doubt stolen from the convenience store a few blocks back that was surrounded by cruisers and flashing lights. Daryl isn’t fighting, he’s running towards Rick when he sees him, crying and weak and crying, crying, crying.

“His mother just died,” Rick’s dad is telling a flustered shop owner. Rick’s dad is stooping, collecting the stolen items, shoving them back against the other man’s chest. “He ran two blocks and stopped, turned himself in. C’mon, man, just take your shit back and we can all go home in time for dinner.”

“I want that delinquent punished!” The shop owner roars. Officer Grimes presses the heels of his palms against his eyes, developing a headache.

“He will be.”

Rick doesn’t really register what happens after that, all he knows is that he and Daryl are pushed into the back of Rick’s dad’s cruiser, and Daryl is crying. Rick is too tired to cry, though he imagines he will in time. Rick’s dad waits until the scene clears, a good twenty minutes, an iron grip on the steering wheel, knuckles white, teeth clenched. Only when they’re alone, drenched in darkness, chorused by Daryl’s sniffles, does he speak. 

“Daryl…” He begins, testing the waters. “You can’t just… damn it.”

“Dad―”

He is not Rick’s dad now, he is Officer Grimes. “You’ll be fired from your job and suspended from school for thirty days, that’s the easiest I could get you off.”

Daryl’s sniffles cease, head raising from where it was resting against Rick’s shoulder. He blinks at the back of the Officer’s head. “Okay,” He agrees. It doesn’t sound like him.

Grimes turns around. “How’d you get those bruises?”

“You know how.”

There’s a staredown, Rick is caught between the two sides. His father is studying his boyfriend, now a criminal, his boyfriend is studying his father, now a holder of information that not even Rick knows. He had assumed Daryl had gotten in a fight to get the cuts and bruises. 

Tentatively, Rick’s father asks: “Is it safe for you to go home?”

Daryl pauses. “No…”

“Right. You’ll come home with us, then.”

No one talks for the rest of the ride home. Daryl stops crying. Rick doesn’t look at him, he looks out the window and pretends the breathing around him belongs to strangers.

* * *

 

Daryl sits on Rick’s bed, looking at his hands instead of Rick, chewing down on his bottom lip. He’s been at it for a while now, rocking in place, lip bleeding, teeth stained, body slouching. Rick fixes up his room, rearranges things that don’t need rearranging, just trying to keep his hands busy. The elephant in the room is suffocating, it adds weight upon Daryl’s shoulder, crumpling him, burying him. Rick yearns to help him bear this load, but something stops him. 

Daryl swears. 

Rick turns, seeing the blood drip onto his comforter before Daryl could collect it in his palms. Daryl’s mouth opens to apologize, letting more blood spill out over his lip; he shuts it quickly. Tears leak out of his eyes, silent sobs. Rick sighs.

“It’s okay.” Rick’s voice sounds foreign, even to him. “Stay here.”

He returns with tissues, a towel wet with warm water, and an ice pack. Sitting next to Daryl on the bed, he gently wipes his face with the cloth, mindful of how jumpy and sensitive the boy is. He then applies the ice to the bruise on his cheek, still swollen, still affecting how well Daryl could speak. 

“If it keeps bleeding,” Rick says, pulling back to studying his handiwork. “Just use the tissues, ‘kay?” He holds the pack against Daryl’s cheek a second more, gesturing for Daryl to take over. Their fingers brush when their hands switch. 

“Rick,” Daryl tries. His throat is overused or underused, either way sore and pleading him to stop speaking. “Rick.”

“Yes, baby.” Rick cups his cheek, the one not decorated in bruises and chilled by ice. 

Daryl sniffles. “‘m sorry.”

Rick sighs, bringing his forehead to rest against Daryl’s. They breathe the same air for a while. “Don’t be. You’re fine, Dare. You’ll be fine.”

Daryl kisses him. It tastes like blood; Rick ignores it. The ice pack drops between them and Daryl is laying back, guided by Rick’s gentle hands on his back, on his hips, on his thighs. Rick’s bed creaks with their movements, dips under Daryl’s weight, conforms to their shapes. Daryl looks tiny against the blankets and pillows, face stained with blood and tears. The bust on his lip has reopened under Rick’s mouth. They move past it, ignore it. Rick focuses on coloring Daryl’s neck with bruises of its own. These are given with love and promises and more love. 

Daryl whines. He’s crying again, keening under Rick.

Rick pulls back. “You good?”

Face wet, lip bleeding, Daryl is shaking his head. “I―”

“C’mere,” Rick says, sitting back on his heels. Rick goes for Daryl’s shirt, but he doesn’t get far. The boy’s hands are a vice around his wrists. Rick sighs. “Your shirt is covered in blood, sweetheart. You can’t sleep in it. You need to sleep.”

Daryl blinks. “Sleep?”

“Yes, baby, sleep. C’mon.”

Daryl lets him tug off his shirt. Rick sees more bruises, vast assortments of scar tissue, old and new, cigarette burns. He ignores them. He has to ignore them. Daryl does just the opposite of that, bending his spine to curl in on himself just slightly, staring down at the bruises and running his fingertips over where his stomach rolled. The baby fat would be cute if it wasn’t purple, green, and blue. Rick kisses Daryl’s forehead, urging him to lay back, to ignore what he sees. 

“Lemme go wash this,” Rick says, attempting to detangle himself from Daryl’s grip. His efforts are for naught; Daryl holds on somehow tighter, enough so that their bones roll and crack in the eerily silence of the night. “Okay, never mind.”

Like something out of a ventriloquist act, Daryl moves stiff and uncoordinated under Rick’s guiding hands. They manage to nestle under blankets, Rick being mindful of where he could hold Daryl and where there were too many bruises. Rick predicts Daryl will sleep for too long, or he won’t sleep at all. 

The latter wins.

* * *

 

In the morning, Rick will rouse Daryl with delicate kisses along the dip of his collarbone. He won’t know Daryl hadn’t slept a wink, and when he figures it out, he ignores it. He ignores it in favor of making Daryl twitch under his mouth, trying his absolute hardest to kiss away the stiffness in his muscles. Daryl, a mess of exhaustion, eyes lidded and mouth parted, falling asleep under Rick’s mouth, curves to Rick’s movements, twists, dances. 

When he moves to lay on his stomach, Rick shuffles along his bedside table for the tube of lavender-scented lotion he swiped from his mother’s room the night before. Uncapping it, he squirts a considerable amount in his palms, rubbing them together and relishing in the sleepy chuckle Daryl gives him when he peeks over his shoulder. 

“Smells good,” Daryl hums, face in Rick’s pillow. 

“My pillow or the lotion?” Rick jokes, another kiss placed on the nape of Daryl’s neck. 

Daryl moans when Rick presses the heels of his palms into the muscles of his back, pressing down, down, down, deep into Daryl’s core. “Both,” Daryl manages, the reply cut short by another choked-off moan. “Fuck.”

“Yeah?” Rick laughs, moving to straddle Daryl’s back. The bed makes protesting groans, showing its age when they shift around. Daryl continues to hum, moan, sing, each sound a perfect melody to Rick’s ears, flowing off his tongue like the perfect rhythm of poetry. Rick would not put it past Daryl to be thinking of stanzas for a poem right now. 

“Yeah,” Daryl breathes. “Yeah. Rick, hey―”

“What’s up?”

“Can I suck your dick?”

“God, yeah, please.”

And they shift positions, Daryl bending despite his bruises. His mouth, once unable to even speak, closes around Rick like it was created just for that. Daryl laughs, sucks, drools, kissing along Rick’s thighs and testicles until Rick is near tears, sobbing with his hands buried in Daryl’s hair. 

And when Rick finishes all over Daryl’s face and in his mouth, he kisses Daryl, tastes himself on his tongue. Daryl isn’t mortified by this, he sits back with spunk on his bruises and in his hair and he laughs like springtime and lemonade.

* * *

 

Christmas comes and goes. The cuts on Daryl’s face scab and peel. The bruises fade away and his voice returns to normal. The semester ends in January with promises of new experiences, new teachers to hate, new classes to skip, new friends to pretend to make. They leave their desk clump in the corner hesitantly, glancing over shoulders and tripping over each other’s feet. Mrs. Bucken ruffles Daryl’s hair one last time, tells him to quit smoking and keep writing. 

“I’ll keep writing,” Daryl promises. He doesn’t promise to quit smoking. Mrs. Bucken lets him go reluctantly, knowing as well as everyone else she won’t have another Daryl pass through her classroom in a long, long time―if ever. In a lot of ways, Rick pities her. Differences aside, he knows first hand how attached one could get to Daryl Dixon. Rick finds solace in knowing he’ll still see Daryl every day. 

“She liked you, you know,” Rick tells Daryl. They’re in the crowded lunch room, confined here by the melting snow outside, only able to stare wistfully out at the bleachers from behind windows.

Daryl scoffs in reply. Rolling his eyes at Rick, he takes another bite of his pizza. “Yeah, right.”

Rick laughs, reaching over to brush a strand of Daryl’s hair out of his face. “She did. Were you a bit difficult? Sure. Did you cause more trouble than you’re worth? Obviously.”

“Better have a point to all this,” Daryl jokes. 

Rick’s smile only brightens. “You didn’t let me finish! Yes, you’re a dick, but you’re also smart and talented and amazing and the best damn essay writer she’ll ever have.” 

Daryl mock glares at him for half a second before his facade cracks and he’s laughing, doubled over and hiding his blush in the corner of his elbow. “Fuck off, man, you jus’ wanna get laid.”

“Yeah, that too.” Rick laughs, nudging Daryl’s shaking shoulders with his own. Steering the conversation in a different direction, Rick hums thoughtfully. “Your birthday’s coming up soon.”

“It’s May tenth.” Daryl raises his head to blink in confusion. “It’s March.” 

Rick shrugs. “Few months. That’s sorta soon.”

Daryl cocks an eyebrow. “Oh yeah? What are you gonna get me?”

“Weed.”

Daryl’s teeth are pointy and white. “You’re the best.” With no regard to their surroundings, Daryl pulls on Rick’s til their lips connect, kissing him right there in the middle of the cafeteria. Their relationship wasn’t a secret, but it also wasn’t public, and it was less than expected of Daryl to make public displays of affection. Rick was in no way complaining, though.

“So,” Rick attempts to say, trying with little alacrity to escape Daryl’s mouth. “Any classes you’re feeling good about this semester?”

Daryl shrugs, places one more sloppy kiss on Rick’s cheek. “I dunno. Zoology sounds pretty cool. History;s gonna be a pain in my ass though, isn’t it?” 

Rick rubs his knee sympathetically. “You have zoology with Mags, right? And we have Economics together.”

“Yeah, true.”

“Perk up, Dare.” Rick nudges him again. “Do you wanna come over after school? My parents are going out to dinner with my dad’s boss.”

“See,” Daryl says, voice cracking. “You  _ do  _ just wanna get laid!”

“I never denied it!”

“Rick Grimes, you give me grays.”

* * *

 

May 10th is not an eventful day. Rick and Daryl skip school, climbing out of their windows at four in the morning. Rick has weed stuffed in his back pocket, Daryl has blunt paper and a five dollar bill that went through the washing machine in his. Hand in hand, already started on one blunt that supposedly tastes like pineapple but tastes more like ash, they walk until they find a pond.

The sunrises as they sit, laying out a blanket Rick found in the back of his closet. The fabric is scratchy and the design is hideous, no doubt stitched by an old lady in a nursing home, but Daryl plops down on it and kneads in like a kitten. Around them, the dew sparkles pink and lilac on the flowers, twinkling like daylight fireflies and Daryl looks so lovely sitting there like he belonged. A kiss to Daryl’s chapped lips, a whispered  _ happy birthday _ passed through the air between them. A grain of sand could break this contact. 

“Look,” Daryl urges. A doe and its fawn tiptoe their way out of the treeline, pausing momentarily to glance in their direction. They go silent, Daryl practically buzzing beside Rick, and the pair of deer move onward, around the far edge of the pond and into the wood on the other side. Daryl is grinning, wide and sincere, the pastel light of the sunrise gleaming on his white teeth and rounded nose and Rick decides May 10th is the best day of the entire God damned year. 

“You’re so good, Dare,” Rick says, and he hasn’t spoken anything truer. 

“Spring is the best season,” Daryl declares. He brings the blunt up to his lips. Rick watches him, mesmerized by how the blush dusting his cheeks matches the sunrise.

If Daryl was a season, it'd be spring.

He is, after all, the merciless anger of the thunderstorms, the lull of the mornings, both a lion and a lamb. Flowers grow out of the cracks in his surface, just as they do through the frozen ground. He is the strength returning to the sun, the briefness of it all. Fleeting, dirty, and unpredictable ― Daryl is just like spring.

“Are you okay?” Rick asks him. It's a silly question, it's out of place. Daryl’s nose wrinkles, his face contorts; he is thinking it through. Daryl’s wearing that black sweater with all the holes in it, the one that’s known many hands and seen better days. It’s comfortable around his skinny frame, loose around his ribs, safe and familiar. 

“Yeah.” Daryl nods and sucks the last of the smoke out of the blunt. “I’m okay.”

If he’s lying, Rick won’t find out for a long while. If he’s telling the truth, Rick will scoop him up and kiss him amongst the ferns. He does this now, one arm under Daryl’s bent knees and one around his shoulders, carrying him bridal style and stepping on dandelions.

Spring becomes Rick’s favorite season and he captures fireflies to keep in jars.

* * *

 

On his back on Rick’s bed, Daryl arches up towards the ceiling. The blankets stick to his back, sweat pools in the dips of his baby fat and biceps. His hand, resting on the pillow beside his head, curls and uncurls into an undecided fist, unsure how it wants to present itself to the world. Above him, Rick has one hand around Daryl’s cock and the other on the side of Daryl’s pillow unoccupied by said fist. 

June has been good to them. With the end of freshman year around the corner, Daryl’s attitude changed from the bitterness that overcame him in the winter, to the windchime brightness of summer. 

He’s still a brat, though.

“We―ah―gotta go meet the gang,” Daryl struggles to say, then contradicts himself by pulling on Rick to tug him into a deep kiss that was more a tangle of tongues than anything else. Rick laughs into the corner of Daryl’s mouth, drooling slightly. “Dude!” Daryl splutters. “Gross!” 

“Hurry up and finish, then,” Rick challenges, twisting his fist around the head. Daryl swears far too loudly, Rick’s parents in the living room below them, and Rick has to slam his hand down on the boy’s mouth and still his movements in a flight of panic. 

Panting around the makeshift muzzle, Daryl says: “Keep yer hand there.” 

It takes five more strokes before Daryl is biting down on Rick’s hand until he tastes blood and finishing all over his own stomach. “Fuck,” Daryl says, strained, barely managing to kiss Rick back; he remains slack jawed while Rick places loving pecks along his mouth and cheek, waiting out the afterglow. Daryl’s fingers, once indecisive, find residence in Rick’s hair, carding through his curls and scratching at his scalp. 

“Ready to go?” Rick asks, escaping Daryl’s grip. He leans over the side of the bed, fishing their clothes out from under it and coming to find his pants on the other side of the room. Clambering off the bed, he glances at Daryl over his shoulder. “The coffee house, right?”

“Where else?” 

“Right. We’re like the characters in  _ Friends _ .”

“I’m Joey,” Daryl declares. “You can be Ross.”

“I’m insulted. Consider yourself single.”

Daryl laughs, tossing a pillow at Rick. “Shut up. Fine, you can be Chandler.”

“Deal. Daryl, I want you back.”

“Fuck yourself.”

They listen to Mac Demarco on the way to the coffee house. Daryl sings along to every song, looking from the window to Rick, never not smiling. Rick smiles back, one hand on Daryl’s thigh. He’s unsure of this shift in emotion, reminded every day of the image of Daryl under the streetlight, bathed in yellow and cover in his own blood. His mother, laid to rest in a grave along the edges of King County’s smallest graveyard, is still a mystery to Rick. She died ablaze, smoked to death by her own cigarette, sound asleep as the flames engulfed her. Half of Daryl’s house joined her in the ashes. 

But Daryl is here, smiling and alive on the way to the coffee house. Rick is taking a detour before he can even decide it's not the best idea. 

Daryl glances over at him when he takes the wrong turn, not speaking or questioning him with words, just watching carefully. Rick drives with no destination in mind until he finds one, a parking garage towering over the rest of the buildings, right in the middle of town. The parking is free, there’s no one here to monitor who comes and goes, so Rick drives his car until they're at the very top. 

Daryl gets out before Rick does, walking immediately over to the edge, leaning over the concrete wall and gazing down at the street below. Rick follows slowly, coming up behind Daryl with a hand on the small over his back and glancing over, too. There’s nothing down there that catches Rick’s attention, not more than the boy beside him, at least. 

“Hey,” Rick says, tugs on Daryl’s shoulder to make eye contact. 

Reluctantly, Daryl turns to Rick, a bit irritated from having to look away from the pigeon he had previously been invested in. “‘sup?”

Rick becomes interested in a particularly long strand of Daryl’s hair, where the brown turned dirty-blonde in the sun. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah.” Daryl blinks, head cocked to one side. “I’m fine, Rick, promise. I’m gonna be fine.” 

“Pinky promise?”

Daryl holds out his pinky, linking it with Rick’s. “Pinky promise.”

Still holding Daryl’s finger, Rick feels a crushing sensation on his lungs. It takes him a moment to realize it doesn’t frighten him, and it doesn’t feel like it’s weighing him down. Quite the opposite, really; he feels like he could float away, off that parking garage, pinky linked with Daryl’s. 

“Hey, I love you, Daryl.”

Daryl doesn’t run. He doesn’t flinch or stiffen or stumble over his words. He smiles, faint bruises still coloring the wrinkles on his face, filling his laughter lines with temporary ink. “I love you, too, Rick.”

And then they’re kissing, chaste and soft, as close to the sky as they could get. And then Daryl’s pulling away, his fingers playing with the curls on the nape of Rick’s neck. “Can we go meet them now?”

Rick laughs, racing Daryl back to the car. Daryl fastens his seatbelt on his own accord now, the first time Rick hasn’t had to remind or force him to. When they secure a parking spot outside the coffee shop, Daryl pulls Rick into another kiss, repeating those three words without actually saying them, and Rick begins to believe that they  _ will  _ be okay. 

Glenn and Maggie are sitting practically on top of each other next to a semi-awkward looking Carol when Rick and Daryl join them. There’s already two lemonades waiting for them on the table, collecting condensation and creating rings on the wood surface. Rosita is hovering like she does, one hand on her hip and the other twirling a piece of her hair, laughing at a joke Glenn told that Rick and Daryl only heard the punchline to. 

“Hey,” Daryl greets. “What’s up?”

“We have news,” Maggie says instantly.  _ We  _ apparently meant her and Glenn, judging by their joined hands resting on the table by their drinks. With a reassuring nudge and a shared glance from Glenn that was absolutely  _ oozing  _ adoration, Maggie announces: “We’re dating!” 

Rick laughs, sitting next to Daryl and rubbing circles in his thigh. “Congrats!”

“Really?” Daryl says, not able to avoid sneaking some sarcasm into the conversation. “Couldn’t tell.” He gestures to their joined hands, earning himself some obnoxious giggles from the two lovers. “Really though, congrats.” 

“Thanks you two.” Glenn is smiling more than Rick’s ever seen him, lighting up the room. Maggie is no better, her beautiful features even more stunning when they’re beaming. 

Everything goes on like normal. Carol confesses that she’s started writing poetry, even reading some when Maggie badgers her enough. Rosita sneaks them free pastries and refills and dances amongst the customers, and Rick is completely and utterly in love with Daryl Dixon. He knows the feeling is mutual, despite the nagging in his conscience telling him otherwise, when Daryl, in the middle of the conversation, holds up his pinky. Rick takes it with his own and they smile. 

They’ll be okay. 


	2. Sophomore

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey wassup

By sophomore year, their friend group gets back on the right track, for the most part. Daryl got his job back, Maggie got her license, Glenn moved up a few rungs on the social ladder, and Carol now frequents a weekly open mic night. The poetry she reads is both old and new, happy and sad, long and short. She’s proud of it, and that’s what matters. 

Glenn and Maggie’s relationship goes from an awkward fling to a love fest. They outshine Rick and Daryl with their PDA and relationship-related social media posts. Daryl is more than willing to give them their fair share of attention, and when he and Rick walk into first block together, hand in hand, there is only one or two glances in their direction. 

Daryl is cowering under those glances now, teeth bared at the new student who watches them warily. Rick makes no effort to smooth his hackles; if the new kid wants to mess with the bull, he fully deserves to get the horns. 

“Take a picture,” Daryl hisses. The spectator’s spine goes rigid in fear and he whips around, staring with military grade stillness at the front of the classroom. Daryl mutters, “Dick.” And buries his face in the crook of his elbow. 

“Make a good first impression,” Rick suggests, one eye on the teacher walking into the room. “Then you can fuck around.”

Daryl runs his finger over a crack in the desk’s surface. “It’s nearly impossible to not fuck around in fucking… what class is this again?”

“Health.”

“Health.” Daryl lazily raises his hand when his name is called on the attendance. “I swear to God, Rick, one person even  _ looks  _ at us when we start talking about STDs and I’m cracking skulls.”

“I’ll allow that,” Rick says. He calls out a ‘here’ when it’s his turn. 

The new kid raises his hand when the name ‘Eugene Porter’ is called. Daryl straightens up, narrowing his eyes at the back of the kid’s skull. “He has a mullet, Rick,” Daryl points out, sounding exasperated. “A fucking mullet. What year is it?”

Rick has to stifle his giggles by shoving his face into his arms, feeling Daryl grasp at his shaking shoulders in his own fit of laughter. It takes two minutes and a very stern call out from the teacher for them to calm down enough to act semi-normal, but Rick still has to avoid glancing at Daryl in fear of cracking up again. 

“So, you working tonight?” Daryl asks, completely ignoring the teacher going over the syllabus. Rick glares at him out of the corner of his eye, attempting with little passion to actually pay attention. First impressions. 

“No,” Rick says. “Pay attention.” 

“Come by the coffee house tonight,” Daryl continues, smiling at Rick’s exasperated look. “It’s open mic night, Carol’s reading.”

“As if I’d have anything else to do,” Rick jokes, biting his tongue between his teeth. “You’re my only friends.”

“What about the baseball team?”

Rick thinks. “I wouldn’t call them  _ friends…  _ rather... dudes who I happen to play on a team with so I can get a scholarship and go to college to support my drug-dealer boyfriend.”

Daryl laughs, blushing and trying to hide his gleaming smile. Rick scoops up his hand and presses a kiss to the knuckles, finger pressed against the base of his wrist to seek his pulse. If Daryl notices he’s doing this, he doesn’t mention it, but he also lets Rick hold onto his hand. 

“Hey,” Rick says, stealing Daryl’s attention back with a tug of their hands. “You okay?”

“Rick,” Daryl sighs, chin resting on the desk. “You’ve asked me this, like, once a week for the past four months. Yes, babe, I’m okay.”

“Right.” Rick offers Daryl a sincere smile. Daryl watches him for a few more seconds, worry etched into his brow. Eventually, he settles back, facing the teacher and feigning attention.

Daryl wasn’t showing any signs of spiraling again, but Rick was still being cautious. Better safe than sorry, right? If anything seems out of the ordinary, he wanted to catch it before it got too bad. Mr. Doe keeps rambling, something about homework and graduation requirements, and Daryl listens, occasionally glancing at Rick and offering reassuring blinks. 

Everything is okay.

* * *

 

Open mic starts at seven, sometimes seven thirty, but Rick arrives at six thirty. The coffee shop doesn’t have a lot of tables, and on Thursday nights they’re arranged in a sloppy semi-circle around the stage tucked in the corner. Sometimes they’re arranged neater than usual; those are the nights Daryl sets them up. This is a special task for him and he takes it seriously. This is one of those nights. 

Rick takes a seat at the table closest to the counter because he knows Daryl likes to lean over it when the performers go on stage, especially Carol. If Daryl misses a set for some reason, like making a coffee or cleaning up a spill in the back, he’ll make sure someone describes it to him in intense detail. Rick is convinced the open mic idea was Daryl’s. 

When Rick slips into his regular seat, there’s already a cappuccino on the table with a heart design in the foam. Rick smiles, glancing over his shoulder at the counter to find Daryl already grinning at him. Daryl holds up a finger and finishes wiping down mugs, then tosses the towel over his shoulder and greets Rick properly. 

“Hey, babe,” Daryl says, hugging Rick from behind. Rick hugs Daryl’s arms, kissing the fabric of the tight, long sleeve black shirt stretched sinfully over Daryl’s muscles. 

“Hey, good-lookin’,” Rick teases. Daryl rolls his eyes, two fingers pinching the soft curls behind Rick’s ears. 

Blushing, Daryl shoves a thumb in his mouth. “Stop.”

Rick smiles, sharing his drink with Daryl until Maggie and Glenn show up around six-fifty. Tagging along is Maggie’s little sister, Beth, tugging along a guitar case that was far too big for her twelve-year-old self. Glenn takes the chair right next to Rick while Maggie helps Beth write her name on the sign-up board. Carol’s is in the top five, Daryl having written it up earlier. 

“‘Sup?” Glenn greets with one eye on his girlfriend. 

“Hot cider?” Daryl asks, pulling out a notepad and tapping the tip of his pen against the corner. Glenn nods, waiting for Daryl to scribble it down before ordering Maggie and Beth’s drinks for them. Pen in his mouth, Daryl tears the paper from the rest. “Cool. Be right back.”

“When’s Carol coming?” Rick asks. 

“Soon.” Glenn tugs his sweater tighter around his small frame. Maggie and Beth join them moments later, smiles and pink cheeks, nervous jitters in Beth’s legs. 

Daryl returns with their drinks, hot cider for Glenn, vanilla chai for Maggie, hot chocolate with whipped cream for Beth, a kiss on the lips for Rick. Daryl tastes like smoke and the strawberries he steals from behind the counter, with a lingering taste of vanilla on his tongue that makes him the culprit of stealing some of Maggie’s drink. 

“You get off at eight, right?” Rick asks, hands on Daryl’s cheeks. 

Daryl nods, places another kiss on Rick’s forehead. “Good luck, Beth,” He says. “I’ll be watchin’ right behind the counter.”

“Thanks, Daryl!” Beth squeaks. She has a milk mustache on her top lip and whipped cream on her chin. 

Carol storms in then, smelling like smoke and juggling four notebooks and a pack of cigarettes, pens and pencils sticking out of her short hair. Panting, she drops her load on the table, cheeks flushed and gasping out: “I napped.” 

Rosita, passing by with a tray balancing on her arm, takes one look at the state Carol’s in and scoffs. “Obviously.”

Ignoring her, Carol plops down next to Beth with a huff. “I don’t even know which poems I’m gonna read. Did Daryl put my name up already?”

“You’re fourth.” Rick grimaces sympathetically. 

Carol rolls her eyes. “Of course.”

The first act goes on at exactly. It’s a band of two, two scrappy looking boys with long hair, crooked, chipped teeth, and bandages on their knees. One of them has a guitar that’s held together by duct tape and a chipping paint job, and the other sits himself down on a Cajon drum, tapping along in quiet rhythm while his partner introduces them. They call themselves the  _ Monkey Bars  _ and declare their music to be the best thing the crowd will ever hear. 

They’re okay.

Only okay. Daryl likes them, he bobs his head behind the counter, drumming his fingers on the marble surface or on the ceramic mugs while he makes drinks. They sing about getting high and being arrested. They remind Rick of Daryl, honestly, and judging by the over the shoulder looks Glenn and Maggie cast at Daryl, they think the same. Twenty somewhat agonizing minutes of Billy Shunk screeching away at the mic and Jonny Oak banging on his drum go by before they’re replaced by a confident looking girl with a strand pink hair. 

“I’m Tara,” She introduces herself, a deck of index cards clutched in her hands. “I’m gonna do stand-up. Y’know, comedy. That stuff. Please laugh even if I’m not funny.” That earns her a collective chuckle from the crowd and she beams. 

“Stand-up is either really good,” Glenn says, “Or absolutely horrible.”

“I’m gonna give her the benefit of the doubt,” Maggie decides. 

She’s hilarious. At one point, Glenn fears he’ll piss his pants. Tara cracks jokes, does some improve, and even flirts with a few girls in the audience, Rosita being the main target. Rosita blushes, hiding behind Daryl’s broad shoulders and crooked smile. Rick laughs, catching Daryl’s laughing eye and winking. When Tara finally exits the stage and the act after her sets up, Glenn calls her over to their table.

“Dude, you’re awesome,” He tells her, clapping her on the back. 

“So funny,” Maggie agrees, her hand on Tara’s forearm. Tara blushes, eyes wide at the pretty girl currently complimenting her. “I’m Maggie, by the way. That’s my boyfriend, Glenn, and my little sister Beth. Beth is performing tonight.”

“That’s great!” Tara beams.

“I’m Rick.” Rick shakes hands with the girl, making sure to praise her set with high degree.

“Carol.” Carol nods, closing in on herself slightly. “I’m performing after these guys.”

Tara pulls over a chair, looking instantly comfortable in their group. She looks like she belongs, to Rick at least, almost like she’d been part of their group from the start. 

“That’s awesome, wow.” Tara glances around, finding Rosita swishing around the room and following her wistfully. “You guys regulars here?”

“You could say that,” Rick says. “My boyfriend works here, so does Carol, so.”

Tara narrows her eyes at Rick. “Yours the handsome looking criminal that looks like he could make even me fall in love with him?”

Rick laughs. “Yeah, that’s Daryl.”

“Do you know the brunette I was, uh, joking around with?”

“Rosita? Yeah, she’s awesome.”

“She has a boyfriend, though,” Maggie chimes in, nose wrinkled sympathetically. Tara falters for a second, then shrugs. 

“I’ll wait.” 

The third set goes on, a guy in his mid-twenties with flowers in his beard and a beer in his hands. He sings love songs about summertime and pick up trucks and drive ins, times before his own, girls that he dated for a few days during spring break. Daryl likes this guy, too. He dances slightly in place, steaming milk for lattes and cappuccinos. By the end of this guy’s set, it’s eight o’clock and Daryl’s clocking out, opting to sit on Rick’s lap instead of the empty chair next to him reserved for him. 

“Daryl, this is Tara,” Glenn introduces, gesturing to their new friend. 

“You’re the lesbian comedian, right?” Daryl asks, slipping into the chair next to Rick finally. At Tara’s nod, he says, “You totally made Rosita blush. She’s already halfway to being in love with you.”

“Stop,” Tara whines, hiding behind her glass of water. 

By now, Carol is already up on stage, standing in front of the microphone, looking out at the chatting audience. She doesn’t seem over-eager to start, waiting patiently for the noise to die down, her body rocking back and forth on the toe and heel of her black Converse shoes. One man near the front clears his throat and the floor goes quiet. 

“Um, hi everyone. I’m Carol.”

There’s a handful of ‘ _ Hi Carol _ ’s, mostly from the corner occupied by her small group of friends. She smiles thankfully in their direction, a tiny upturn of her lips that remains on her face as she continues her introduction of herself. 

“I’m gonna be reading some poetry I wrote,” Carol says in her smallest voice. “If that’s alright?” The crowd uproars, loud considering the little numbers stuffed into the cozy room. Carol’s smile brightens. “Awesome. This first one is about wolves.”

Carol reads about wolves, about becoming a wolf. She reads about being a sheep in wolf’s clothing and the full moon and becoming stronger. For a moment, it scares Rick. It always scares Rick at first, no matter how many times he watches her get up on that stage and listens to her words. Daryl is always completely immersed, his breath trembling by the end of it. Carol reads three poems. One about wolves, one about Cherokee roses, and one about fire.

Everyone cheers when she finishes, loud applauds canceling out the appropriate snapping from one or two people near the front. Daryl even stands to clap for her, enveloping her in a hug when she ducks off stage and hides from the attention in his arms. 

“You did great, Care,” Glenn says, tugging on her sleeve. “I loved the one about the rose.”

“Thank you.” Carol blushes, squeezing Glenn’s hand where it was still wrapped around her forearm. 

Maggie chimes in. “Really, honey, these were some of your best yet―” She’s cut off by her phone ringing obnoxiously loud. “Shit, sorry, one sec.” Scrambling, Maggie fishes it out of her pocket and grimaces when she sees the contact name and answers. “Hey, dad. What? I’m at open mic, like every ― Yes, Beth is with me. She performing, Dad. Dad. C’mon, she’s excited for this ― Dad!” Hershel yells something on the other line, loud enough to be heard through the phone, but not loud enough to be distinct. Maggie pulls it away from her ear, looking near tears. “Yeah, okay. Yeah. See you soon. Bye. Love ya, Dad.”

“We have to go home?” Beth asks timidly, clutching the neck of her guitar. 

Maggie jerks to look at her, almost like she forgot her little sister was sitting next to her. “Yeah, baby. I’m so sorry.”

“What’s going on?” Daryl asks. He glances from sister to sister, getting visibly angrier at each passing second of silence. 

“Parents are fighting again.” Maggie hastily gathers up her and Beth’s things. Everyone pretends they can’t see the silent tears on her cheeks. “They want us home.”

“ _ Again _ ?” Rick echoes.

Maggie turns her blunt stare on him. “Yeah, again. See you later, guys.”

Tugging a reluctant Beth behind her, Maggie retreats from the coffee house, head bent in shame. Glenn looks torn for a moment, looking between his departing girlfriend and his lingering friends. It’s only when Carol nudges him towards the door with a mumbled,  _ go on _ that he shuffles after Maggie, nodding an embarrassed goodbye over his shoulder. 

As the next set prepares to go on, Daryl grunts. “Don’t really feel like open mic anymore.” 

“Yeah,” Tara agrees, albeit looking a bit lost. “Anyone have any cigs?”

“I have a pack,” Carol says, already getting up. Everyone follows suit, discarding their mugs and trash in the designated bins on the way out. 

Outside on the front steps, Daryl pulls out his lighter and lights a cigarette while Rick surveys the parking lot. It’s cold enough now to see their breath in the autumn evening. Beside him, Carol shivers, holding out the crumpled pack of smokes until everyone who wants one has one. Rick doesn’t take his own, opting to share with Daryl instead. 

“Don’t like you smokin’,” Daryl complains when Rick plucks the cigarette from his fingers. Rick shrugs, exhaling in his boyfriend’s face. Daryl wrinkles his nose and steals the cigarette back, leaning in to kiss Rick before he could take it back. Rick laughs against Daryl’s lips, wrapping his arms around his neck to deepen the kiss, uncaring of Carol and Tara watching them. 

“Okay, relax boys,” Tara huffs. “Still waiting on the lighter, Dare.”

Daryl apologizes half-heartedly, still smiling as they drift towards Rick’s car, leaning against the hood while they finish their cigarettes. Smoking theirs half as fast, Rick and Daryl chose to light another one, fighting playfully over drags and blowing smoke into each other’s mouths. Carol smiles endearingly at them, half-engaged in a conversation with Tara that neither of them seems to care much about.

“Why are Maggie’s parents fighting?” Tara asks, grinding out her cigarette with the heel of her combat boot. 

Daryl shrugs. “Didn’t even know they were. Don’t think any of us did.”

“She hid it pretty well,” Carol agrees. A cold gust of wind makes her shiver and suck the last of the smoke out of her cigarette before she snubs it out as well. “Unless they just started fighting.”

“Or they jus’ started doin’ it in front of her,” Daryl grumbles. “Couples don’t jus’ fall out over night. Happens over time, before anyone even knows it’s happening. Sucks.”

“Do your parents fight?” Tara asks, innocent enough.

Daryl snorts, passing the cig to Rick. “Everyone’s parents fight. Mine did a lot before my mom died last year.”

Tara blinks, taken aback. “Your mom died?”

Daryl nods nonchalantly. “Mmhm. Fell asleep with a lit cigarette b’tween her fingers. Half the house burnt down with her.” He chuckles around the cigarette. “Stupid bitch, was bound to happen.”

“Stop,” Rick chastises. “Don’t talk about your mother like that.”

Daryl musters some energy to glare at him, but there’s no venom to it. Secretly, Daryl still loves his mom very much, Rick can tell. Her death shook him, obviously, and over the summer he had recurring nightmares involving her and her death. Enough gentle lullabies from Rick rid the nasty dreams away, and Daryl still hates sleeping alone. He never liked it much to begin with, anyway. 

“Well,” Tara says, checking her watch. “I should get home. Can you do me a favor?” Daryl nods. “Give Rosita my number?”

At Daryl’s grin, Carol offers Tara a scrap paper and a pen and Tara scribbles out her digits. Between the pen’s lack of ink and Tara’s all around shitty handwriting, Daryl has to clarify and rewrite one or two numbers, tongue poking out in concentration. And Rick loves him so much. 

“Cool,” Daryl says, shoving it in his vest pocket. “I’ll give it to her tomorrow.”

“Awesome, thanks.”

“See you around?” Rick says in parting, unlocking his door. Daryl makes for the passenger seat, only pausing to wait for Tara’s response. 

Tara grins. “Yeah, see you around.”

“Cool.” Rick smiles. “Goodnight, guys. Drive safe, walk safe, whatever.”

Everyone exchanges goodnights and goodbyes and Daryl and Rick clamber into Rick’s car. Daryl immediately blasts the heat, hands held up to the humming vents despite the cold air they were filtering in. Rick rolls his eyes but still waits until heat begins to fill the car before he pulls away. 

“Coming to my house?” Rick asks, tapping along to a song Daryl found on the radio. 

“Nah, gotta go home sometime,” Daryl sighs, glancing at Rick like he expected a fight. Rick agrees, though, and although he’d love to spend another night with his boyfriend, Daryl had slept over the past three nights and he’s pretty sure his parents want a break (and are probably pretty suspicious, if they somehow haven’t figured it out yet).

So they fall into a comfortable quiet, one of them occasionally humming or singing along to the radio. Daryl’s house is too short a drive away, and far too soon Rick is parking on the opposite side of the street and glaring at the dark, seemingly empty house awaiting his boyfriend. Daryl sighs, not eager to exit the car.

“Night, Rick,” Daryl says.

“Night, Daryl,” Rick replies. They can’t kiss here, this close to Daryl’s house, in fear of Daryl’s father or brother seeing them. Daryl won’t even kiss Rick in his neighborhood in fear of tattle tails blowing their cover. Everyone knows everyone and everyone talks, he always tells Rick. 

They murmur quick  _ love you _ ’s before Daryl is exiting the car and crossing the street in a haste, not glancing over his shoulder at Rick. Rick waits until he sees Daryl safely inside, then waits a little longer in case he hears yelling and Daryl storms out in a few moments. But all is quiet, the house still dark and undisturbed, and Rick has zero excuses to remain parked in the shadows. 

Lonely, he goes home.

* * *

 

The next day, Maggie comes in looking like she’s been to hell and back. She slams her stuff down on the lunch table, hair messy, face bare of any makeup, clothes old and smelling of a basement. Everyone freezes, Daryl’s spoon half poised between his mouth and the pudding cup, Carol mid-conversation with Glenn, Rick taking advantage of the opportunity and shoving his mouth onto Daryl’s spoon, stealing the pudding. 

“Asshole!” Daryl yelps. Rick shrugs, pudding on his cheek. Giving Maggie his full attention again, Daryl goes for bluntness. “The fuck happened to you?”

Maggie glares at him, and if looks could kill. “My parents fought all night and I got like, no sleep. Neither did Bethy, the fucking assholes. God, I just ―  _ hate them _ right now.”

Carol hums sympathetically, grabbing Maggie’s hand. Glenn does the same, although a bit more hesitantly. Currently, he looks torn between comforting his girlfriend and running a thousand miles away. Comfort wins and he places gentle kisses on her cheek, rubbing her arms until she calms down. 

Maggie wipes away tears Rick didn’t even notice at first. “If they keep this up I’m gonna… I’m gonna run away, or something.”

“Shush with that,” Glenn reprimands gently, his tone light. “Just do something dramatic, you know? Like, cut off all your hair or something. You’d still be the prettiest girl in the whole school if you were bald.”

That, apparently, is the hay that broke the camel's back. Maggie starts sobbing, smothering her boyfriend in kisses and hugs and  _ thank you you’re the best I’m so sorry I love you so much thank you thank you thank you _ . Glenn is smiling, so much love for Maggie, kissing her back and murmuring things meant for her ears only. Daryl deems this a worthy moment to go back to his pudding.

* * *

 

“You think Mags is good?” Daryl asks, looking up from his copy of  _ 1984 _ . Daryl has mixed feelings about this book and it’s the one that takes him the longest to read because of the excessive details that make him lose focus. 

It’s been a few weeks now since Maggie’s breakdown at the lunch table. Every day, she’s come in looking either worse or the same as the day previous ― never better. 

Rick shrugs, currently in the middle of jotting down notes from his own copy. “I think she’ll be fine. Parents fight.”

“You think they’re gonna get a divorce?”

Rick stares at him. “Not really our business, babe.”

“I know.” Daryl chews on the end of a pen. “Jus’ wonderin’.”

A librarian shushes them. 

Daryl rolls his eyes and goes back to his book. Rick has lost focus on his, his mind deciding that Maggie’s downhill spiral was far more interesting than the long, way-too-detailed paragraph he was trying to analyze. Seriously, this dude describes the dust particles in the air with flowery language and metaphors. How Daryl was even managing to get anything out of the text was beyond Rick. 

After a few minutes of silence and concentrated reading, Daryl gives up with an annoyed huff. His book flops onto the table and his pen goes with it, followed quickly by his head as he slams it into the hard surface. A long, low groan escapes his mouth. Rick hides his smirk behind his book. 

“This book is the worst,” Daryl complains. “In what way is the extensive details of the fucking wall this dude is describing gonna help me in my career. Rick, I’m dying. Don’t try and save me. Pull the plug.”

Rick laughs. “You just need to blow off some steam.”

“I’m gonna fight someone,” Daryl decides, sitting up straight. “Imma beat the snot outta someone.”

“Please don’t.”

“Too late.” Daryl packs his bag. Study Hall ― aka their last block ― is over in two minutes.  “Got plans to fight Ford already.”

“Ford?” Rick echoes. “As in, captain of the ROTC class and head wrestler? You have a deathwish, Dixon?”

Daryl smirks. “Maybe.” The bell rings. Daryl plants a quick kiss on Rick’s mouth. “Jay’s corner store, four o’clock. Be there.”

“I’m not driving you?” Rick asks. Daryl is already hurrying away. 

“No, Merle’s pickin’ me up,” Daryl calls over his shoulder. “Bye! Love ya!”

Daryl’s already gone and Rick replies, “Love you, too,” to an empty room. Deciding chasing after Daryl to try and talk him out of it was worthless, Rick sets his sights on a more realistic target: Maggie. He knew Glenn stayed after on Fridays, so Maggie would be without any plans. Just as he expects, Rick finds her hunkered down on a bench outside the school in the weak November sun, head bent low, fingers violently typing out a text. 

Rick approaches her cautiously, hovering by the bench without sitting until she notices him. “You’re blocking the sun,” Maggie says, but moves over and gestures to the vacant space beside her. Slowly, Rick sits, still unsure of Maggie’s emotional state. Without looking up from her phone, Maggie asks: “Where’s Daryl?”

“Fighting someone,” Rick says, simply. “At four. Merle picked him up.”

This raises Maggie’s head. “His brother? Why?”

Rick shrugs. “I dunno.”

“Are you okay?”

“Are  _ you _ okay?”

Maggie stares at him. It reminds him of how Daryl used to stare at him all that time ago, suspicious and considering, calculating his unreadable thoughts. If Maggie could read his mind, she wouldn’t be happy with what she’d find. A lot about Daryl, mostly, and cigarettes. Rick wants a cigarette.

“Is  _ Daryl _ okay?” Maggie asks next, the words flowing off her tongue slowly.

Rick pauses, taken aback. “He’s fine, why?” Daryl wasn’t giving off any warning signs that Rick could pick up on, and he considers himself very good at reading Daryl.

Maggie doesn’t look convinced. By now, the parking lot is nearly empty and the buses have left the lot. Aside from the teachers, Maggie and Rick seem to be the only people left on the school property. Maggie decides now is an appropriate time to light a cigarette, pulling a pack out of her pocket. On the back, in smudged ink, there’s a few scribbled notes where Maggie apparently ran out of paper and went for plan B. When she holds the pack out to Rick, he sees they’re geometry notes, and in Daryl’s handwriting. Rick smirks. 

“These Daryl’s?” He asks, although he already knows the answer. 

Maggie bites her lip. “Yeah, he gave them to me earlier.” 

Rick raises his eyebrows. “He’s not bringing cigarettes to a fight?”

“Probably doesn’t wanna lose them.” Maggie shrugs, sticking one in her mouth and lighting it. Rick is amused to see Daryl even dumped his lighter on her. Maggie offers him one, which he graciously accepts, and they sit on the bench together in silence until whoever Maggie had been texting texts back. “Fucking hell,” She groans. 

“Dad?” Rick guesses, judging by the way Maggie slumps. 

“Yeah.” Maggie doesn’t bother replying to whatever her father sent her, just smokes her cigarette faster and lights another as soon as the first ones smoked down. 

By the time Maggie is three cigarettes deep, and Rick is halfway done his second, it’s three fifty. “I should probably go support my boyfriend, huh?” Rick hums. Maggie nods, pocketing her phone. Rick sighs, not making any attempt to move. “I don’t really want to, though.”

“Then don’t?”

Rick nods, hesitating on the bench just a while longer before deciding that homework is more important than watching his boyfriend get the shit beaten out of him. “Did you drive here?”

Maggie shakes her head. “Dad dropped me off.”

“I’ll bring you home, unless you have somewhere else you wanna be?”

“Home’s fine.”

Rick’s car is the last one remaining in the student parking lot, aside from Glenn’s, looking laughably pathetic sitting all by itself. Maggie lights another cigarette when she settles in the passenger seat, one hand groping for the bag of candy Daryl stashes under the seat. She finds that, a couple of stray weed nugs, and a pizza crust. 

“Boys are gross,” She huffs, tossing the crust out the window and stuffing the nugs back under the seat. She unwraps a pink Starburst with her teeth. “Who’s Daryl fighting?”

“Abraham Ford,” Rick says, exasperated. 

Maggie snorts. “He’s gonna lose.”

“No shit.”

* * *

 

Sure enough, Daryl loses. It comes as no surprise to Rick when, before he could even get home from dropping Maggie off, Daryl is texting him for a ride. With a million questions about where the hell Merle went running off to going through his head, Rick finds Daryl a few blocks down from Jay’s, nurturing a black eye with a small tub of ice cream. 

“Hey,” Daryl says in greeting, passing over the ice cream. “Got that for you.”

“It’s got your eye juice on it,” Rick mock pouts. Daryl laughs, leaning over the center console to kiss Rick. Rick shoves the ice cream back against Daryl’s chest despite Daryl’s tongue in his mouth. “Keep it, babe. At least ‘til we can get a proper ice bag.”

Daryl smiles. “Thanks.”

“Where’d Merle go?” Rick asks offhandedly, speaking carefully as to not accidentally step over a line.

But Daryl just shrugs, invested in unwrapping a Starburst that Maggie left on the seat. “Had to go to work.” He frowns at the state Maggie had left Rick’s care in: wrappers littering the floor and piling up in the cup holders, cigarette ashes on the upholstery. “Maggie was here?”

Rick nods. “Gave her a ride home.” When Daryl sighs, Rick glances at him. “What’s up?”

Daryl shrugs again. “I’m jus’ worried about her. I’ve been there, y’know? It sucks.”

“I’m not sure if parents fighting equates a parent dying…”

“It’s all relative, Rick,” Daryl argues.

“You’re right.”

They drive around a while, stopping at Taco Bell for dinner and swiping two plastic spoons to share the tub of ice cream in Rick’s car. It’s long since melted against Daryl’s face, more like cookie dough soup then ice cream when they open it, but the taste is the same. The taste is even the same on Daryl’s tongue when he crawls over into Rick’s lap to kiss him. It’s a tight squeeze, and the horn even blares for a good three seconds when Daryl shifts just right, but Rick finds it really hard to complain with Daryl grinding on him, tasting like chocolate and tacos. 

“My house?” Rick manages to come up for air long enough to ask, hands on Daryl’s hips to slow him. 

“Yeah.”

Back in his own seat, Daryl fishes out his cock while Rick pushes the speed limit. Daryl kicks one foot up on the dashboard, tilting his head back as his hand works on his dick. They seem to hit every single red light on the three-mile drive back to Rick’s house, and it doesn’t help that Daryl makes a point to moan whenever Rick’s forced to slam on the breaks. 

“C’mon, Daryl, cut it out,” Rick snaps, slapping Daryl’s hand away from his dick. Daryl smirks, making a point to sit on his hands, cock still exposed, rolling his hips into the air.

“Light’s green, Rick.”

Finally, they pull into Rick’s driveway, the tires screeching. Daryl laughs, stuffing himself back in his pants and tripping to get out of the car. Managing to sneak passed Rick’s parents, who were absorbed in a crime show, they make it to Rick’s bedroom unscathed. 

And Rick fucks Daryl, and Daryl stifles his moans in Rick’s pillows, and Rick’s bed creaks with its age, and Daryl bites down on Rick’s forearm when he comes, nearly breaking the skin. He apologizes in the afterglow, pressing gentle kisses upon the forming bruise, lapping at the sensitive skin with his tongue. They lay on Rick’s bed, Rick on his back and Daryl on his stomach, raised up on his elbows, watching Rick scroll through his phone. 

They stay like this until they’re both complaining about their aching necks, then Rick’s leaning over the side of his bed to grab his laptop. “ _ Die Hard _ or  _ Easy Rider _ ?” Rick asks, queuing up a movie pirating website. 

Daryl hums and rests his chin on Rick’s shoulder. “ _ Spirit _ .”

Rick laughs. “Like the horse movie?”

“Like the horse movie.”

“Got it.”

By the end of the movie, it’s just after midnight and Daryl’s on Petfinder.com looking for horses available for adoption in their area. Rick is in the middle of laughing and reminding Daryl he doesn’t even have a backyard to keep the horse in when his phone rings. It vibrates under Daryl’s ass, making the boy yelp in shock. 

“Who is it?” Daryl asks, not looking up from the profile of an old black mare. 

“Maggie,” Rick answers, frowning at the caller ID. Daryl glances over, eyes wide, shutting off his phone’s display as Rick picks up. “Hey, Mags, what’s up?”

On the other line, Maggie sounds tired and breathless, like she’s been crying for hours. “Can I, um, come over?”

Daryl is close enough to hear through the phone, and he and Rick exchange concerned looks. Slowly, Rick says: “Mags, it’s midnight. Are you okay?”

“I just ― I can’t be home right now.” Maggie’s breaths start coming in rapid succession, spiking paranoia in Rick’s belly. 

“Yeah, okay, yeah come over. Actually, we’ll pick you up. I don’t want you driving.” 

Daryl is already out of bed, gathering up their clothes from every corner of the room. Maggie tells Rick her whereabouts, some gas station about five minutes away, while the boys fight to get dressed as fast as they can. Sneaking out through his window, Rick lets his mind run off without him, imagining a million scenarios as to why Maggie’s not home. There’s not a single one that does anything to calm his frayed nerves.

“I’m sure she’s fine,” Daryl soothes, sensing Rick’s energy. “Rebellious spirit.”

Rick glares at him. “Last time I got a call like this, I showed up to you with guns pointed at your head. Excuse me for being on edge.”

Daryl keeps his mouth shut after that, opting to stare out the window of Rick’s car, one knee hugged to his chest. 

They find Maggie sitting on a curb, smoking the last of Daryl’s cigarettes, wrapped up in a jean jacket that was far too big for her. She looks up as they approach, her eyes red and swollen from crying. They don’t hug or say anything in greeting, but Maggie does look to Daryl with a pleading look in her eyes. 

“Can you do me a favor?”

The gas station bathroom is unisex. The lighting is fluorescent, flickering and with a green tint; the whole thing is dingy, dirty, and Rick can imagine overdosing on cocaine in here, dying slowly against the graffitied walls, listening to the buzzing flies lulling him to sleep. Daryl seems to be imagining the same thing, the way he steps around like something is going to jump out at him. Maggie grabs both sides of the sink, staring at herself in the mirror, taking in her eyebags, her running mascara, her lack of color. 

Daryl stands beside her, just a few inches taller, bruised faced and scowling visage. He licks his teeth, runs his tongue over the bust on his lip and swipes fresh blood over his top lip. Rick tries to count the flies buzzing above them. Glenn must be worried sick about Maggie. Rick’s parents must be worried sick about him. The only people who care enough to worry about Daryl are here. 

“Daryl,” Maggie says. Her hands are in her long brown hair, shaking and pale. She grips the sink again to regain her balance. “Can you cut my hair?”

“Right now?” Daryl looks at her, blood on his chin. 

“Yes. You have your knife on you, right?”

Daryl always has his knife. He keeps it tucked in his combat boots, the ones with the torn soles and the busted heels and the smiley face Rosita doodled on the side. She calls them happy shoes. Daryl poises the knife to Maggie’s hair, moving higher and lower as she directs him. She whispers perfect when the sharp side of the knife brushes her neck, right above her shoulders. Daryl holds it there a moment, not hard enough to break the skin, but enough so she feels it, so the knife knows her pulse. 

Then, in one flourished movement, he slices six inches off her hair. Rick watches, one eye on the closed door, just in case someone else was looking to use the sketchy restroom at one in the morning. Maggie’s hair falls around her in a semicircle while she cries, still supporting herself between the sink and Daryl’s body. The end product is choppy, messy ― this isn’t Daryl’s profession. Daryl’s hands are shaking as he gingerly tries to neaten up the mess he’s made of Maggie’s hair, but she tells him to stop.

“It’s perfect,” She says, rubbing the uneven ends between her thumb and pointer finger. She laughs, breathless, and turns to Daryl. “Do you want me to do you?”

Daryl brushes the hair off of his knife, wiping the blade on his pants. “No.”

“Okay. Hey, when we get back home,” Maggie says, turning to rest the small of her back against the sink. “Can you dye it for me?”

Rick starts, blinking at Maggie in disbelief. Daryl is faring no better, going somehow paler than before. Rick knows that look. He really needs a cigarette. 

But his voice is steady when he replies, “Yeah, course, Mags.”

Maggie keeps crying. “Thank you.”

They walk down the rows and aisles of the gas station until they find the hair dye. In one hand, Daryl holds the colors of the rainbow, in the other, he holds the colors of the forest floor. He shows Maggie browns and reds, purples and blues, oranges and yellows. Maggie takes it all in and Rick watches from a few feet away as she holds boxes up to her hair, getting nods or shakes of Daryl’s head in response to each color. 

Finally, they decide on a shade of green that reminds Rick of olives. “Green,” Daryl says, laughing as the cashier rings it up. “For Maggie Greene.”

On the ride back to Rick’s house, Maggie tries convincing Daryl to dye his with whatever dye they’ll have left over after they dye hers. Daryl remains non-compliant, hiding his grin behind his hand while Maggie throws a childish fit in the back seat. 

“C’mon, I think you’d look hot,” Maggie argues. “Right, Rick?”

Rick shakes his head. It’s a bad move, in the long run, because his tired mind becomes disoriented and throbs. “I’m a neutral party.”

In Rick’s bathroom at two in the morning, Maggie strips down to her underwear while Daryl applies Vaseline to her forehead and cheeks. She sits on the toilet, shivering until Rick pulls a space heater out of the closet and plugs it in. It rattles to life, its age probably succeeding Rick’s own, but it fills the room with stuffy warmth in minutes. 

“There’s only one pair of gloves,” Rick reads the back of the packaging out loud. Daryl looks up, then shrugs.

“You use it; I don’t mind getting my hands dirty.”

“Deal.”

Because Daryl doesn’t have gloves, Rick is the one who applies the bleach to Maggie’s hair. She complains about the itching after about fifteen seconds, trying to reach her fingers through the goop to scratch at her scalp. Daryl’s job becomes keeping her from doing that. He’s pretty good at it. Soon enough, the bathroom reeks of bleach and they’re all sneezing and wiping their eyes on their forearms as opposed to their hands. 

“There’s some leftover bleach,” Maggie points out, throat sore from sneezing. She looks pointedly at Daryl, an impish grin on her face. 

Daryl huffs, rolling his eyes. “Fine.”

They don’t bleach all of Daryl’s hair, just a few strips. His hair was already a dirty blond, so Rick assumes the dye will catch pretty much everywhere. Daryl shakes his head. “I don’t wanna dye the whole thing. Just a few streaks, okay?”

Maggie is smiling. “Okay.”

After a half hour, following the instructions on the box, Daryl and Maggie hop in the shower in their underwear, washing the bleach out of their hair. Rick watches and prays the noise of Maggie laughing doesn’t wake his parents, because now it’s passed two in the morning and he has no logical explanation. Being grounded is worth it, he decides, when he sees the pair give each other bubble mohawks. 

It’s four am when the process is completely done. Maggie and Daryl, their hair the color of moss, help Rick scramble to clean up the bathroom. The white tile floor is streaked with green (“At least it’s not red,” Daryl says. “Then it’d look like a murder scene.”), Daryl's hands are stained nearly black, but Maggie is smiling, her parents forgotten, in the mirror, running her hands through her foreign hair. 

“Glenn’s gonna kill me,” Maggie declares, pulling her clothes back on. Daryl hums, opting to remain shirtless. Turning to Rick, Maggie asks, “Do you wanna kill Daryl?”

Rick smiles. “No, it’s hot. Messy and impulsive, but he looks good.” Daryl rolls his eyes at the same time Rick winks one of his. “I love it.”

When they finish cleaning, they’re all practically asleep on their feet. Shuffling more than walking, they find their way to Rick’s room and onto his bed. Daryl lays down first, with Rick and Maggie on either side, Maggie opting to lay with her back to them. Daryl stuffs himself under Rick’s chin, one arm across his chest and a leg shoved safely between Rick’s. Rick nuzzles his cheek into Daryl’s hair, knowing full well his skin would be stained when he wakes up but being too tired to care. 

They sleep.

* * *

 

It’s evening when they wake, blearing eyed and disoriented to Rick’s mom walking in without knocking. Made aware of their relationship over the summer, she isn’t shocked to find Daryl curled up like a cat in Rick’s sheets, but Maggie is an obvious surprise. So is the hair, too.

“It’s very… green,” She says, taking a lock of Daryl’s hair between her fingers. 

“I’d hope.” Daryl can’t refuse a sarcastic reply. 

Smiling at Daryl’s joke, Rick’s mother goes on to tell them that she and his father will be going out for dinner and won’t be back until later. Only when they’re gone, and they can hear the distinct sounds of a car pulling out of the driveway, do they get themselves to get out of bed. 

“I feel hungover,” Maggie groans.

“You’ve never drank,” Daryl points out. They sit around Rick’s kitchen table while Rick finds a box of frozen waffles in the back of his freezer. He throws four in the toaster and prepares four more. 

Maggie rolls her eyes. “Okay, I feel like what I  _ think  _ being hungover feels like.”

“Much better.”

They eat their waffles and talk about  _ Ethan Frome  _ and it feels like Freshman year again. Everything is okay.

* * *

 

Daryl learns how to skate. He’s not good at it at first. Often he ends the day with cuts and bruises, scraped knees and pink elbows, but he’s always smiling. He learns how to do a kickflip over the course of a day, and shows Rick his small collection of tricks at the end of the week. When Rick notices three small cuts on his wrist, he’s quick to brush it off. 

“Fell of the board,” Daryl says, shrugging. “Pebbles and shit. Watch this.”

* * *

 

It’s very rare that Rick will pick up Daryl at his house. Rick associates it with bad things: Daryl scurrying across the street with his hood up, Daryl not exhaling until they’re a few blocks away, Daryl hiding in his skin. Before today, Rick didn’t know exactly what Daryl was fearing. Before today, Rick didn’t know Daryl drank. 

When Rick catches him, he’s not even trying to hide it. He looks shocked at Rick’s outright tone, his hand half poised in cracking open the can, the surface dented a bit when he squeezed it just slightly in his surprise. 

“What the  _ hell  _ are you doing?” Rick repeats. They’re leaning against the hood of Rick’s car in front of Daryl’s house. It’s late, not too late, but it’s February so the days are shorter. In February, six o’clock is late. 

Daryl looks from Rick to the beer, and back to Rick. “Um… drinking?”

Rick gapes at him. “Since… since when do you drink?”

“Um―I―” Daryl is tripping, stumbling over his own tongue. His hand not currently holding the beer begins fiddling with a hole in his black sweatshirt, the same one he’s had since Freshman year. “I―I have been for a while. Just―just not around you.”

“What the hell is this, then?”

Daryl is a deer in headlights. “I didn’t think you’d care…”

Rick snorts, making to kick off from the hood and stomp over to the driver’s side door, but Daryl reaches out and grabs for him. Hand around his wrist like a vice, Rick is yanked back towards Daryl, helpless to do anything but comply. Daryl is trembling, both hands empty now, Rick’s arm free and the can of beer resting on the roof of the car. His hands move from his sides to Rick’s neck, Rick’s face, tracing the shape of Rick’s lips. 

“Rick, Rick,” Daryl is saying. “I―I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I won’t do it around you, I promise.” Rick’s face is a scratching post under Daryl’s blunt fingernails. One hand remains on his face as the other hovers near his forearm again, in case he tries to make a quick escape.

Rick sighs. “I don’t like you doing it  _ at all _ .”

“Rick, baby―” Daryl doesn’t finish his thought. Caught in the act, no way to disguise this as something it isn’t, Daryl glances to his right and sees his father standing on the porch, not twenty feet away from them. Daryl is frozen, a hand stroking another boy’s cheek, a breath sucked in. 

William Dixon, an ugly man, a grotesque creature with a wide stance and warts on his face, goes back inside without saying a word. Daryl rips away from Rick like he stuck his entire fist in boiling lava. Daryl is silent. Daryl is watching the door his father disappeared into like a dragon is going to burst out any second and gobble him up. 

“Daryl―”

“Can we… can we drive?”

“Where?” Rick assumes Daryl isn’t interested in open mic night anymore.

“Anywhere.”

They get into the car, Rick with his eyes on the road, Daryl with his lips on the can, and they don’t talk about it. They don’t talk for a long time. It’s been dark for a few hours now, but Rick still chases the direction where the sun set.

“You know what,” Daryl says after a while. He tossed the empty can out of the window about fifteen minutes ago. “I do love you, Rick.”

Rick doesn’t look at him. “I love you, too, Daryl.”

They don’t talk about it.

* * *

 

As Maggie’s hair fades into a pastel green, she gets better. Her parents, newly divorced, come up with creative ways to make up for the trauma they put her and her sister through. Still living on the farm she grew up in, Maggie stays with only her father, and she gets better, albeit slowly. She still goes out in the earliest morning hours with Daryl, getting into things that Rick and Glenn don’t even like theorizing about.

“I’m watchin’ out for her,” Daryl promised, when he looked like he hadn’t slept in six weeks. 

It’s not that Daryl’s not a trustworthy guardian, but as Maggie gets better, Daryl gets worse. 

After Daryl’s father found out about his relationship with Rick, Daryl wasn’t seen for days, and when he finally came out of hiding, he was sporting a black eye, limping on his left foot, and had three more neat, slim lines on his wrist. Maggie and Rick want to do something about his dad ― lock him up or something. Carol wants to do something about the lines. 

The day after Daryl comes into school with the cuts on his wrist, Carol meets them at the coffee house with a Target bag and a determined look on her face. Daryl is out of it, not touching the brownie Rick bought him and ignoring Maggie’s imploring looks. It’s only when Carol slides into the seat next to him that he’s snapped out of his trance. 

“These are for you,” Carol says, reaching into the bag and pulling out a tiny box of rubber bands. 

Daryl eyes them cautiously. “What?”

Carol isn’t frustrated, she doesn’t roll her eyes or scoff. She opens the box easily, nimble fingers and tongue poking out of her lips. The bands are all different colors. Red, green, blue, mustard, they stare back at Daryl like the colors in the hair dye aisle. Daryl picks a red one. Under Carol’s watchful eye, he slips it onto his wrist, the one with the cuts, then pulls it back, stretching it to its limits, and lets it snap back against the soft flesh. 

Maggie flinches. Daryl’s eyes go wide as his skin turns red. Rick has to look away. Carol is beaming with pride. 

Patting Daryl’s welting wrist, she says: “Good boy. Keep it up.”

* * *

 

Having Daryl in his bed now is a rare occurrence for Rick, and when the situation arises, clothes are on and hands are above the covers. Rick does homework on his laptop, the screen blinding in the dark room, and Daryl lays next to him, awake with his eyes closed, not touching, just snapping the red rubber band against his wrist over and over and over.

As Rick types away, he repeats, _you know what, I do love you, Rick,_ every time he hears that rubber band snap. It becomes too much. A teardrop lands on Rick’s keyboard before he even realizes he’s crying. The snapping ceases, Rick slams his laptop shut, Daryl sits up, worried, hands on Rick’s face.

“Rick? Breathe for me, okay? Just breathe.” Daryl’s voice is soft, his pale face visible in the darkness, spare his left eye that’s still surrounded by a bruise. Rick’s throat closes up more at the sight of it, his windpipe completely giving up, his heart racing to the sound of Daryl’s rubber band snap, snap, snapping. 

Should Rick be leaving Daryl alone? Is that even  _ safe _ ? He was foolish enough to drop him back off at his house later that night, Daryl insisted he did. He should’ve fought him, brought him back to Rick’s house and kissed him until he fell asleep. Maybe they should run away together. Does Rick have enough money for that? Does Daryl? Does―

“Rick, love, Rick listen to me,” Daryl is saying, pulling him back. “Baby, hey, yeah that’s it, just breathe.”

Rick breathes. The panic subsides into a throbbing in the base of his skull. He’s exhausted. Daryl is there, stroking his cheek, stroking his lips, rubbing his thumb into Rick’s thigh with his other hand. 

Eventually, Rick finds his voice. “Kiss me?”

Daryl kisses Rick. Rick kisses Daryl. It’s like their first kiss all over again. Rick is breathless, but not because he just finished choking on secondhand smoke. Daryl’s face is beaten up, but not because he got into a scrap with a neighborhood kid. The space between them is not to avoid spilling a bowl. It’s for an entirely different reason that Rick doesn’t want to think about. He chalks it up to the awkward positioning. 

Daryl is pulling back, smiling, snapping his rubber band. “I love you, Rick.”

Rick cries.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hate this chapter but the next one is my fave, probably, so im just throwin this up so i can get to the Junior year chapter lol
> 
> as always, find me on twitter @daryldjxon :-)


	3. Junior

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oooh wow, hi! I'm so so sorry this took so long! I finally met my best friend, he was visiting from Scotland for three weeks, and he just left a few weeks ago! Also, this chapter was incredibly emotionally draining to write. 
> 
> TW for abusive relationships and all the other stuff in the tags. Stay safe, friends
> 
> As always, come chat on twitter (@daryldjxon)

If Rick wanted to lie, he'd say Daryl gets better by Junior year. Problem is, Rick's a horrible liar. Whether it’s the looming dark cloud of pressure on the horizon that comes with being upperclassmen or his father's general existence, Daryl gets somehow worse than the end of Sophomore year. Originally, Rick theorized that summer vacation would give Daryl enough time to get his head on straight by the time school came back around; it did the exact opposite, in the end. More freedom meant Daryl had more opportunities to fuck around, fight, and get involved with the wrong crowd of people.  

Rick thought, foolishly, that he could single handedly keep his boyfriend from going down the wrong path. As it turned out, that was the one crucial mistake he made. He knew that being overbearing would lead to one or two things: Daryl simmers down, or Daryl ends up despising his company. By September, the latter wins, and Daryl and Rick show up to the first day of Junior year by separate means: Rick in his car, Daryl by foot.  

Their group meets in front of the school under the big oak tree that has Maggie and Glenn's initials carved with a heart encompassing them. Daryl shows up last, almost twenty minutes after they've all gathered, ripped black jeans and cut off t-shirt sporting an old 70s rock band. Despite his bitter attitude on the phone earlier that morning when Rick had asked him if he wanted a ride, Daryl strolls up to Rick like nothing had gone down between them and pecks a quick kiss on his lips.  

"G'morning," Daryl breathes. Kissing Rick again, he's quick to apologize for his coldness. "I needed to think." 

Rick smiles. "I understand, it's all good." Or, maybe it would be all good if Rick's passenger seat hadn't been vacant of Daryl in almost three weeks.  

Over the summer, Maggie and Daryl's green hair faded completely. They tried to dye it again in July, but went swimming far too often and it rinsed out by August. They don't try again. 

Coincidentally, Maggie, Daryl, and Rick have English together. It's not with Mrs. Bucken again, but instead with a lovely, small, young woman named Mrs. Kelly. She's timid when she firsts addresses the class, explaining that it's one of her first years teaching, but she's excited to work with them. The older Daryl would've jumped at the opportunity to take advantage of this, but this Daryl punctuates each of her sentences with the snapping of his red rubber band. 

Old, worn, drained of color, the band has seen better days. Daryl sleeps with it on, showers with it on, gets fucked by Rick with it on, and fucks Rick with it on. With each time it cracks against his skin, Rick worries it'll snap. It never does. To Rick's right, he hears snap, snap, snap.  

The kid with the mullet from last year, Eugene, is sitting at their desk clump, too. He eyes Daryl with caution, and rightfully so, because the boy is on edge, snapping his rubber band, leg jiggling under the table. Rick gently nudges his nervous foot under the table, rubbing their calves together. Daryl freezes up at first, his sharp inhale audible to all those around him. Upon realizing it's Rick, though, and the intentions aren't malicious, Daryl relaxes. Rick sighs, continuing to rub their calves together until Daryl is calm enough. 

For the first few days of class, Mrs. Kelly only talks about the class expectations, per usual. Like her voice, her classroom rules are fair. Daryl doesn't try to fight them, he doesn't even try to haze her or puff out his chest in mock disobedience. Daryl is quiet. 

Now, they are two weeks into the year, and Daryl is trying his best to ignore Eugene in his peripheral vision. The boy in mention is clicking his pen rapidly by Daryl's right ear. As subdued as Daryl's been for the past few months, he is only one boy, and self control was never his strong suit.  

"Fucking Christ, cut that shit out," Daryl barks. Seeing this coming a mile away, Rick is quick to jump in. Daryl sits across from Rick, so it's easy for him to wrap his foot around Daryl's ankle, pulling him back.  

Eugene, once terrified of his attacker, puffs up like a bullfrog and goes face to face with Daryl. "Why? You sit there snapping that _damn rubber band_ all class, but I can't–" 

Daryl is standing now, fists clenched at his side and his teeth bared. For a moment, Rick is stunned; Daryl hasn't done much more than the everyday activities required of him in months, yet here he is, hackles up, ready to jump over his desk and choke a kid out. The moment passes, and Rick has his arms around Daryl before he can even process getting up.  

"It's not worth it," Rick hisses. Maggie is standing now, too, her hand on Daryl's chest, glaring daggers at Eugene over her shoulder. Daryl struggles in Rick's grasp. Its foreign, and despite the circumstances, welcomed. "Hey – babe, he's not worth it. Sit down." 

At the front of the class, Mrs. Kelly is staring in shock at what just went down in a matter of seconds. Unaware of the tension forming under her nose, it must've looked like Daryl snapped out of nowhere. For the students, this isn't out of the ordinary. They know Daryl. But Mrs. Kelly doesn't, and to someone who doesn't know him, Daryl is scary. 

"I'd kick yer nuts up into yer throat if you had any!" Daryl spats. He doesn't fight against both Maggie and Rick restraining him. He knows that’s a battle he won't win. "Fucking pussy!"  

Finding it within herself, Mrs. Kelly finally steps in. "Both of you sit down or I'm calling security." Everyone shuts up then. Rick hadn't even noticed how loud it was. "You don't wanna get in trouble this early in the year, do you? Sit down and I'll let this slide." 

The first step is to move Eugene to a different desk clump. The person who replaces him is cool, calm, collected, and watched the confrontation with smiling eyes. "I'm Sasha," She greets. She eyes Daryl with curiosity, not fear, not disgust. Daryl is silent again, his feet tangled with Rick's, snapping his red rubber band.

* * *

 

Maggie's yard is an excellent place to go stargazing. She isn't doing much gazing, though, opting to have her tongue shoved Glenn's throat instead. Between their rolling bodies and Rick and Daryl's motionless ones, two boxes of pizza lay ajar and empty. Rick is finishing off his lemonade while Daryl scrapes up the last of the ketchup on French fry crumbs.  

"You believe in aliens, right?" Daryl asks. He's sucking on the end of a blunt. 

"Of course." 

Daryl smiles. "Good. Do you believe in an afterlife? Like, heaven and hell?" 

Rick shrugs. "No idea. I don't really ponder death, Daryl." 

Daryl frowns, licking salt from his fingertips. The action stirs something in Rick's belly, yet he makes no move to get closer to Daryl or act upon the tingling in the base of his spine. He knows how that'll end. Still frowning, Daryl lays back in the grasses, his arms behind his head like a pillow, and watches the night sky. Rick mirrors his position, grimacing slightly when a stick jabs into his shoulder blade.  

"I think when you die," Daryl breathes, snapping his rubber band, "You just... die. No blackness, no afterlife... just nothing. It's incomprehensible, really, the concept of nothingness. We have to die to figure it out." 

Rick watches him. "Does that scare you?" It should scare him. It scares Rick. It would scare Rick when he's _sober_.  

Daryl shakes his head, releasing trembling breaths. "I'm scared, but not of that. I'm scared because I'm not scared of it." 

"Daryl..." 

"It's just a bad high," Daryl insists. The blunt is a roach now, burning Daryl's fingertips, and Daryl is crying, but not because of the burning. "I wanna sleep out here." 

At some point during Daryl's sphleel, Maggie and Glenn abandoned them in favor of Maggie's soft bed. Rick and Daryl are alone under the stars, Daryl crying, Rick stoned and sated.   

"Can I stay with you?" Rick asks, referring to tonight and every night for the rest of their lives.  

"Yes, please," Daryl replies, hopefully with the same intentions.  

* * *

 

"The first book we're gonna read," Mrs. Kelly is saying, her voice gaining confidence as the minutes go by. "Is _The Catcher in the Rye_." She holds up a small mustard yellow paperback with red-orange carousel horses decorating the front. In the same yellow color, the title of the novel stares the class down, daunting in its serif-style font.  

When Daryl is handed his copy, he looks like he doesn't know what to do with himself. He touches it cautiously, skimming his fingers over the cover gently, as if he was afraid he could bruise it.  

“Can we make notes in these?” Daryl asks, sounding far away.  

“If you’d like, yes, these books are yours to keep if you want them,” Mrs. Kelly says. She smiles slightly at Daryl, whose eyes still scanned the book, before moving on.  

Daryl fiddles with the rubber band around his wrist, not snapping it against his skin, but feeling the texture between the pads of his fingers. Rick catches Maggie watching him, too, out of the corner of his eye. Their eyes meet, mutual understanding, and Maggie starts talking.  

“I’m excited to read this,” She says, a bit too loud, and Daryl flinches. Maggie reaches out to comfort him, then retracts her hand before it gets too close. “Sorry, sorry.” 

Daryl blinks at her, expressionless, then says: “I’m excited, too.” 

Maggie frowns at Daryl, this time actually gathering his hand between both of hers. He doesn’t fight it, lets her press her lips to each individual knuckle, dropping his hand only when she felt like her work was satisfactory enough. Daryl offers her the tiniest hint of a smile, a fake one, a forced one, but a smile nonetheless.  

“Get reading, buttercup,” Maggie says, shifting in her seat. Daryl nods and opens his book, glancing at Rick while doing so. Rick makes sure to smile, flashing his teeth and shrugging. It was near painful to do, but it makes the smile on Daryl’s face widen just the slightest bit.  

* * *

 

Daryl finishes _The Catcher in the Rye_ in one night. Rick finds him three beers deep, spread eagle on his back in the dew-soaked grass of the elementary school. It’s five thirty in the morning when he finds him, stretched amongst the dented bottles, the book asleep against his ribcage. None of the pages are dog-eared, there’s not a bookmark in sight. Daryl read it all in one go, not stopping to sleep or eat, but only to drink.  

Like this, Rick finds him.  

“Daryl,” Rick says, crouching down beside him. The boy isn’t asleep, far from it; he’s blinking up at the gray sky, breathing evenly, muscles slack. For the first time in a long, long time, Daryl looks… at peace. “What’re you doin’, man?” 

“I finished it,” Daryl replies. His voice is rough, he hasn’t spoken in a while. He’s just been reading and reading and reading. He runs his tongue over his dry lips, tasting the salt in the air, wetting the dry spots of beer on the corners of his mouth. “He wanted to be the catcher in the rye, Rick.” 

Sitting back on his heels, Rick rubs his thumb over the soft skin in the crook of Daryl’s elbow. “I… don’t know what that means yet.” 

“You gotta read it.” 

“We just got it yesterday, Daryl.” Rick rubs his eyes, glancing over at the west side of the playground at where the first pink rays of the sunrise were beginning to peek out over the treetops. “Can you come home now?” 

Daryl glares at him. “Your home, or my home?” 

“ _Our_ home,” Rick urges. Daryl smacks his lips again, thoughtfully, considering everything and nothing at all. For all Rick knows, he’s thinking about Holden Caulfield and New York City.  

“I wanna go…” Daryl drifts off, the end of his sentence unclear, suspended between them in the stagnant morning air. It taunts Rick’s reach, a fleeting ghost of Daryl’s lost battles, like a cigarette burn or the welts on his wrist from his red rubber band. _Where do you wanna go, Dare?_ “Anywhere but here.” 

* * *

 

Daryl has nightmares. They play with his head when he sleeps, during the hours that should rightfully belong to him peacefully, that should be an escape from his waking reality. It's unfair, in Rick's humble opinion. Rick can't help Daryl fight the battles that rage on inside his subconscious, much less when he's asleep. The best he can do is wake Daryl when the dreams become too bad. That's what he does now. 

"Daryl, Daryl. Wake up." 

Daryl wakes drenched in sweat, tears in his eyes and hand on his chest, feeling his rapid heartbeat. Upon seeing Rick through the darkness, he jumps slightly, then almost immediately relaxes. With only a little bit of coaxing, he settles into Rick's embrace.  

"Do you wanna talk about it?" Rick asks, gently dancing his fingers through Daryl's hair.  

Daryl deflates under the petting and sighs against Rick's neck. "It wasn't that bad. But it was the worst one." Rick doesn't press him anymore, just continues playing with his hair and humming quietly until Daryl's ready to speak on his own. "You left me." 

This makes Rick stop in his tracks. "Left you? Like, on the side of the road?" 

Despite the circumstances, Daryl finds it within himself to chuckle dryly. "No, Rick. Like, you dumped me." 

Rick doesn't reply right away. He doesn't resume his caresses or humming. He just lays there, feeling Daryl's heartbeat against his own and memorizing for the umpteenth time how he feels in his arms. Rick sighs, nuzzling his cheek into Daryl's hair and closing his eyes. If he's not careful, he'll fall back asleep right then and there.  

"You know that's not gonna happen, right?" Rick finally murmurs without opening his eyes. "I love you, Daryl." 

Daryl ponders for a moment. "Love isn't even real," He declares. "But if it was, I'd love you the most." 

The absurdity of the concept makes Rick laugh a humorless laugh. Daryl hesitates for a moment before laughing, too. Blushing, his cheeks hot against Rick's collarbone, Daryl falls asleep with his hand up Rick's shirt, the material of his rubber band sticking against Rick's skin. 

- 

"You finished this already, right?" Glenn asks, holding up his copy of _The Catcher in the Rye_. Daryl glances up from the blunt he's rolling, nodding. "Can you help me answer a few questions?" 

"Sure." Daryl licks a strip, finishing off the roll and tucking it behind his ear. "What's up?" 

They're sitting outside eating lunch, as usual, sitting criss-cross in a circle. Surrounding them is a plume of smoke, blown from puckered lips around the orange end of a Newport. Daryl hates Newports, but Carol's the only one with a pack, and they're her favorite. So they smoke Newports. 

"What's the significance of Holden's hunting hat?" Glenn asks, chewing on the end of his pencil. "I swear I'm usually really good at this stuff, but I want your input, y'know?" 

Daryl nods. "I, personally, think it signifies how he's hunting for something. Whatever it may be." 

Rick sits back, bathing in the pitiful autumn sun, listening to his boyfriend rant about Holden Caulfield. They haven't been this invested in a novel since _Ethan_ _Frome_ , but at least this is admiration, not hatred. Glenn sits criss-cross, scribbling notes down in his notebook. Maggie nudges Rick. 

"Hey, is he doing any better?" She asks, eyes on Daryl while she speaks to Rick. Rick watches Daryl, too, scanning from the bags under his eyes, to the rubber band on his wrist, to the scabs on his knuckles. 

"He's... getting there." Rick's nose scrunches at the choice of words that fall off his tongue. "He's fighting again." 

"Fighting who?" 

"Anyone who's stupid enough." 

Maggie smiles, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear. Rick attempts to muster up the energy to return the smile, but when it comes out awkward and misplaced, Maggie reaches over and takes one of Rick's curls between her fingers, tucking it behind his own ear. "I'm okay, you know," She says. Instead of pulling her hand away, she leaves it at the base of Rick's neck, scratching softly with her fingernails.  

Rick smiles at her. This time, it's genuine, and she can tell because her fingers tighten around his curls. "I know."  

"He'll be okay," Maggie continues, speaking of Daryl without looking at him. He looks fine now, deep in conversation with Glenn about ducks and hunting hats. In fact, he looks beautiful, smiling around the end of an unlit cigarette, the filter soggy from being chewed. In that moment, Rick falls in love all over again.  

"I know." 

* * *

 

Not five seconds after it happens, there's already a bruise forming on Eugene's cheek. Daryl is panting, up and out of his chair before anyone could sense the heat pooling in his belly – does rage become harder to control on an empty stomach? Rick hasn't seen Daryl eat in days. It's odd that that's the only thing on Rick's mind, considering his boyfriend has just delivered a nasty right hook to a boy who, in Rick's opinion, was totally asking for it.  

"Say that shit again," Daryl is snarling. Maggie doesn't put her hand to his chest and Rick doesn't try to restrain the bull opposite him. Mrs. Kelly is absent. The substitute teacher stands at the front of the classroom with his mouth parted and his hands limp at his sides. He's a small Indian man, with eyes the color of dark roast coffee, blow to three times their size. Trapped between his duties as an authority figure and his moral integrity, he remains a neutral party, as does everyone else in the class. Through clenched teeth, tendons on his arms showing, Daryl repeats, "Say that shit again." 

Bruised cheek, wet irises, balled fists, Eugene says that shit again. "I just – I just don't understand why Holden didn't just _kill himself_ , you know? His life is so, so hard – I'm not strong enough for that. I would've killed myself, I think." 

Daryl says absolutely nothing. There's nothing for Daryl _to_ say. His knuckles are bleeding, stained the same color of his rubber band when it was fresh out of the box. Instead of saying anything, or punching Eugene again, or sitting down and acting like nothing ever happened, Daryl leaves, and Rick doesn't follow him, because Daryl is strong. Daryl is so strong.  

Stronger than Eugene.  

* * *

 

Rick and Daryl are in Walmart playfully fighting over which brand of toothpaste is best when they run into Tara again. Older now, she blinks at them in surprise when she rounds the corner into the dental hygiene aisle. It's eleven at night, so to find another human is bizarre in the first place – but these two, she didn't expect.  

"Rick, Daryl, hey!" Nevertheless, she's cheerful.  

"Tara, right?" Rick says, smiling in greeting. "Don't you have school tomorrow?" 

"Don't _you_ have school tomorrow?" Tara fires back, hands on her hips. Daryl is snickering behind his palm, taking the opportunity to swipe his preferred toothpaste while Rick's distracted. Without thinking, Tara says: "You two are still together?" 

That stops Daryl in his tracks. His knuckles are still bruised from Eugene's cheekbone, and the red rubber band stands out under the fluorescent lights. Rick blinks and the floor sways beneath his feet. The playful smile disappears from Daryl's face, and Rick finds that's what pisses him off most about Tara's question. Not that someone was obviously letting the details of their relationship slip from their tongue, but because Daryl was _happy_ two minutes ago. When something so beautiful is so rare, you tend to want to hang onto it.  

"Yeah," Daryl snaps. "The fuck does that mean?" 

Tara's eyes find the rubber band. "People talk, Daryl." 

A threatening step forward, Daryl's momentum is only slowed by Rick's arm across his chest. "Who the _fuck_ –" 

"Leave it, Dare," Rick's says, tone cool. "Goodnight, Tara." 

They leave with Daryl's choice in toothpaste. They don't hold hands, and they don't talk about it. 

* * *

 

"I'll sleep on the couch tonight, if you want," Rick offers, pulling off one t-shirt in exchange for a bigger, baggier one more suited for sleeping. Daryl stares at his golden reflection in one of Rick's baseball trophies.  

Without looking away, he responds. "It's your bed." 

"I know, but you slept on the couch last night. This is fair." Rick says that lightly. None of this is fucking fair. If it were fair, they'd be cuddled up in Rick's bed, skin to skin, kissing until they fall asleep and kissing as soon as they wake up. Controlled breathing. This is fair.  

"Alright." 

Rick's couch is not uncomfortable. It's seen better days, though, picked up from the furniture store before Rick was even a thought in his parents' minds. It's plain gray, minus a few stains, and the fabric is reversible. Rick draws pictures in it under the dim light of the moon filtering through the window. He writes out his name, he writes out Daryl's name, and he encloses them safely in a heart. After staring at it, unblinking, until his eyes sting, Rick swipes the fabric and destroys the drawing.  

Rick's couch is not uncomfortable, and that's the only reason he manages to fall asleep. Restless and dreamless, Rick doesn't even recall when he slipped into unconsciousness. What he does know is that when he wakes it's not at a normal hour. He wakes because he feels someone staring at him through the darkness, eyes wide, not breathing, not daring to make a sound.  

It could be his parents, a robber, or Daryl. His parents would've said something by now, and a robber would've killed him. Which leaves only one option.  

"Daryl?"  

Daryl moves away from the doorway and to Rick's side silently, like he was gliding, and crouches next to the couch. Rick is still more asleep than awake, lulled by the knowledge that he wasn't about to get gutted in his sleep, so when Daryl whispers into his ear, he's unsure if he's dreaming or not. 

"I love you, Rick, you know that, right?" Daryl is petting his hair, gentle, sweet, Daryl's been awoken by nightmares and sought out Rick, desperate for contact and safety.  

Rick opens his eyes, having closed them at some point during Daryl's grooming, and sees Daryl clutching something to his chest with one hand. Bright red in the pale light, _The Catcher in the Rye_ stands out against the black fabric of Daryl's t-shirt. Pages are dog-eared, ugly yellow with age, and the cover has rivers of white from where the book was folded and jostled about.  

Daryl shifts. "Can I sleep with you?" 

Rick blinks. "Down here?" 

Daryl nods.  

The first of dawn's light comes filtering through the window, and Daryl curls up on Rick's chest. The couch is barely big enough for Rick alone, but they make it work. The book sleeps on the coffee table, next to a stained ring of a time when someone forgot to use a coaster. Finding Daryl's arm, Rick rubs the sensitive skin of Daryl's wrist, along the raised scar tissue, and doesn't feel a rubber band.  

They sleep until noon, and don't go to school. 

* * *

 

"If you just... just breathe, okay?" 

"Breathing is easy." 

"You make it seem like it isn't." 

"Because I don't _want –"_  

"Stop that, will you? Just stop that." 

Daryl huffs dramatically and lays across the table, resting his head on his arms. Maggie sits across from him, crisscross in an old armchair that still held some of its fluffiness. Above them, the singular light in her basement flickers like some sort of horror movie prop. Maggie taps her fingers on her thigh in time with the flickering. She's really starting to piss Daryl off.  

"The fuck do you want from me?" He snaps, breaking the uncomfortable silence.  

"Some fucking _effort_."  

Daryl sits straight again, his spine going rigid, and gapes at her. "To fucking _breathe_? I know how to breathe, you don't have to teach me. What kind of fucking therapist are you?" 

Maggie laughs humorlessly. "I'm not a fucking therapist. I'm your concerned friend." 

Daryl scoffs. "You sound like Rick." 

"What's your fucking problem?" Maggie hisses, leaning forward. Daryl bares his teeth, more than happy to fight back. "Why are you hating Rick? He hasn't even done anything–" 

Daryl slams his hands down on the table that separates them, barking out: "I don't hate Rick. Don't ever say I hate Rick." 

"He thinks you do." 

Daryl frowns, sitting back on the couch. Maggie chews on her thumbnail and taps her foot; Daryl recognizes the effects of nicotine withdrawal. He knows its reflected on himself, too. He hasn't had a cigarette since yesterday morning before he crawled onto the couch with Rick.  

Rick. 

"That's not my fault," Daryl mutters. "It's not. I-I'm fucking trying, Maggie." He lets a note of desperation tug at his voice, to emphasize just _how_ hard he's trying.  

"I know." Maggie sighs. She buries her face in her hands and takes a few moments to breathe. "I know. I know you are, Daryl. I'm sorry." 

Daryl sniffs. The overhead light continues to flicker obnoxiously, and the harsh color doesn't make it any better. He misses the soft lighting in Rick's room and how it made everything blue-purple-gray, cold but warm, too much and too little. He misses Rick. But Rick is home, in his blue-purple-gray room, doing homework and studying, because he's so, so good, and Daryl is so, so bad.  

So bad.  

Daryl doesn't realize he's started hyperventilating until Maggie is suddenly on the couch next to him, gently coaxing his head onto her lap. She hums to him, cradling his head, stroking his hair, and Daryl cries. He misses Rick, but Rick won't miss him. 

It makes this easier. 

* * *

 

Daryl skids into the coffee shop soaking wet, shaking out his hair. Rosita yelps in protests, something about ruining the hardwood floors, but Daryl throws her a look over his shoulder and flops down in a chair next to Rick. Glenn, Maggie, and Carol all sit, dry as can be, and turn their noses up at Daryl's dripping mop of hair.  

"Raining hard?" Rick jokes, stealing a kiss.  

Kissing him back, Daryl shrugs. "The rain always looks worse from inside." 

"That's poetic," Maggie comments.  

"It's true," Daryl shoots back.  

"Here," Rick says, nudging a hot chocolate in Daryl's direction. "Already ordered for you and everything." 

Daryl smiles, leaning in to kiss Rick again. "You're the best." 

"I know." 

"Hey," Carol says suddenly, her hands tucked into her sweater and playing with loose threads from the inside. Everyone turns to her expectantly. Daryl snaps his rubber band. Carol continues slowly when she realizes everyone's waiting for her to speak. "I, uh, kind of... have a boyfriend now." 

Shouts of surprises glee rise up around the table, and Carol is blushing into her chai tea latte. Glenn gives her a gentle pat on the back while Rick leans over to squeeze her hands. Her smile is enough to split her cheeks.  

"That's so great, honey," Maggie says, clasping her hands together. "Who is it?" 

"Um... you know that kid, uh, Ed in our chemistry class–" 

"Whoa," Daryl interrupts. "Wait, _that_ Ed? Ed who's shit I rocked for harassing those girls Ed?" 

Carol rolls her eyes. "That was one time, Daryl. And you don't even know his side of the story–" 

Daryl scoffs in disbelief. "The fuck, Carol?" 

"Hey," Maggie hisses. "Leave it alone, she's happy, Daryl." 

Daryl snorts. "Whatever." 

Rick watches Daryl carefully, but the boy goes into a blank state and watches the steam rise from his hot chocolate. Sighing, Rick goes back to the essay he had been writing, and Maggie goes back to discussing weekend plans with Glenn, and Carol buries her nose in her phone again.  

* * *

 

No one likes Ed, but Daryl _really_ doesn't like Ed – and Ed doesn't like Daryl. They get that out in the open the first time Carol invites him to hang out. The parking garage is covered in a fine layer of snow, one that's easy to melt if they hold their blunts close enough to the cold powder. Maggie shivers in her boots and long socks, the pale lengths of her legs visible as she stubbornly wears a black mini skirt. Fishnets obstruct the view of her skin.  

Daryl wears a pair of his own, mostly hidden under his black jeans, but where the fabric has torn on his knees, you can see the crisscross pattern of the stockings. They poke out where the cuffs are rolled up, too, right before they disappear into his shoes. His shoes are soaked through, scuffing up the snow around Glenn's car as he paces, chewing on the end of an unlit cigarette. It's his pacifier, stifling his fit, and he sucks and sucks and bites down – _hard –_ when Ed sneers in his direction.  

"Fight me, you fucking–" Daryl starts to say out of the corner of his mouth, his main priority is the cigarette and not dropping it into the snow. Rick stops him.  

"Daryl..." 

"No, Rick, if he wants to be a fucking douche he can–" 

"Daryl, _please_." 

Daryl scoffs and continues his pacing and chewing. Rick watches him from his perch on the hood of Glenn's car, his toes skimming the snow, until he can't take it anymore and tugs Daryl over by the sleeve of his jean jacket. Daryl stumbles slightly, but Rick takes it as a good sign because he doesn't put up a fight, and eventually settles to stand between Rick's bent legs, muttering threats under his voice.  

Ed remains protected behind Carol's watchful, narrow eyes, throwing taunting looks out of the closed window of her passenger door at the back of Daryl's head. Rick makes sure to keep Daryl's attention on him, holding the collar of his jacket and pursing his lips at each bad name his boyfriend calls Ed under his breath. 

"I'm gonna kick that cuntswab's ass, Rick. I will," Daryl promises. He takes the cigarette out of his mouth and tucks it behind his ear, giving Rick easy access to his mouth.  

"I'm sure you will and I support you one hundred percent," Rick says, leaning in to snatch a kiss. To his surprise – but unfathomable delight – Daryl indulges him and deepens it. His tongue and lips are cold, tasting like the minty end of a Marlboro, and Rick eats it up, because it's so _Daryl_  that it hurts. When they break apart for air, Rick mumbles, "I miss kissing you." 

Daryl smacks his lips. "Do we really not kiss that often?" 

Rick shrugs. "I'm not keeping track." He most certainly is, though. And no, they don't. 

Daryl kisses him again, quick, chaste pecks on his mouth, then on his nose, then his forehead. His tongue comes out when he travels down Rick's jawline, down his neck until his lips brush the fabric of Rick's jacket and he admits defeat. "S'too cold to give you a hickey," Daryl murmurs apologetically, rubbing the sensitive skin behind Rick's ear with his thumb. "Sorry, love." 

"It's fine," Rick says, smiling, breathless and happy as can be. "You can make up for it later, yeah?" 

Daryl laughs and agrees, abandoning the idea of kissing in favor of leaning forwards and resting his forehead on Rick's shoulder. Rick thinks he could've fallen asleep if things went a little differently.  

No longer hidden from Rick's view by Daryl's body, and out of Maggie and Glenn's line of sight from where they're leaning over the edge of the parking garage, Ed has a fistful of Carol's hair in his hand, whispering something inches away from her face. Rick starts, his grip on Daryl's hips tightening. In that moment, he decides he doesn’t give a _fuck_  about what Carol wants.  

"Babe," Rick growls, nudging Daryl. "Kick his ass." 

Daryl raises his head, blinking in confusion, before following Rick's gaze over his shoulder and see the scene himself. Rick feels Daryl become hotter with rage. " _What the fuck_?" 

Before anyone can process what's happening, Daryl has the door practically ripped off its hinges and Ed's collar gripped between his fists. Ed's head makes a sickening smack against the concrete floor. Carol yells something that Rick can't hear over the pounding of adrenaline in his ears, and Daryl's straddle punching Ed like it's his fucking job.  

"Stop!" Carol wails. "Daryl, _stop_!" 

Maggie has her arm around Carol's waist, holding her back from jumping head first into the middle of a fight she won't win, and Glenn stations himself at Rick's shoulder, the pair of them ready in case Daryl needs any assistance. But Daryl doesn't, and he delivers punch after punch until Ed finds it in him to fight back. Daryl gets a mean right hook to the cheek, hard enough to have him reeling back. Before Ed can get too cocky, though, Rick's throwing himself in at his boyfriend's aid, grabbing Ed in a headlock and wrestling him to the ground.  

"My dad's a cop," Rick spits through gritted teeth as Ed struggles in his grasp. "I've been practicing how to bring down assholes since I was five. Give up, asshole." Ed goes limp in his arms.  

"You good?" Glenn's asking Daryl, who's spitting out blood in the snow. "Yeah?" 

"Yeah, 'm good."  

Glenn smiles and grips the denim across Daryl's chest. "Atta boy, Daryl." 

Daryl's teeth are straight and red.  

"The fuck, Daryl?" Carol hisses, escaping from Maggie's now reluctant grasp.  

Daryl leans against Glenn's shoulder when he replies, "The fuck _me_? What the fuck was _he_ doin'?" 

Carol sniffs, pushing Rick off her boyfriend's body and glaring at them. "None of your business," She says through her teeth. Rick stalks over to Glenn and Daryl.  

Daryl growls low in his throat. "It's our business when that asshole is–" 

"He's my _boyfriend_ ," Carol says, applying pressure to Ed's wounds with her shirt sleeve. Maggie scoffs in disgust: she bought Carol that shirt. "I don't – I haven't said anything about you and Rick." 

Daryl pauses. "What about me and Rick?" 

"Stop," Rick says, stepping between them. "Stop. This isn't about me and Daryl, Carol. Ed's a fucking asshole–" 

"Want round two, douche-bag?" Ed hisses from his very unthreatening position on the ground. Daryl lurches from Glenn's arms and is almost on top of Ed again before Maggie stops him with an arm across his chest.  

"Leave it," Maggie says, deadpan. She waits until Daryl is back at Glenn's shoulder. To Carol, she continues: "Look, we love you, Carol, but we won't support this. We all saw what was happening just now. And we aren't blind, we see the bruises and the cuts." 

Carol sniffles, Ed leers, and somewhere, a bird sings.  

"Then you aren't my friends," Carol declares after a moment's silence.  

Maggie measures the weight of her words. "I guess we aren't. Let's go, boys." 

Piling into Glenn's car, they leave Carol on the roof with blood-stained snow, and they don't call her, and she doesn't call them.  

* * *

 

Daryl kisses Rick more than ever. Random pecks during school, long goodbye kisses, kisses with tongue, and kisses as he rides Rick's cock for the first time in months. He cries when they finish, silent tears on his face, and he tries to hide them from Rick by burying his nose in the pillow and facing the wall. Rick lets him believe he has no idea. 

* * *

  
"If I was going to kill myself," Daryl muses, flicking his rubber band. "I'd do it with like, pills or something. Something quiet, you know?" 

Rick looks up from reading _Gatsby_. "What?" 

Daryl shakes his head. "Never mind." 

* * *

 

Tara takes Carol's place at their table in the coffee house. She chats with Rick while he waits for Daryl to get off work, and next to them Maggie fills out an application for the position Carol quit after their fight on the roof.  

"Do you miss her?" Tara asks, sipping the last of her iced tea. The straw is stuck at the bottom between ice cubes, making an annoying slurp/bubbling sound.  

Rick shrugs. "Sometimes. I have other things to worry about, though." His eyes trail after Daryl's moving figure behind the counter. Tara watches him.  

"I'm sorry about... that night in Walmart." 

"It's fine," Rick laughs. "Really, it's fine." 

Maggie raises her eyebrows but doesn't ask.  

"Is he...okay?" Tara questions, dropping her voice. "Like, is he getting better, worse...?" 

Rick hesitates. "Better, I think." 

"Have you guys considered like, therapy or anything?"  

Maggie laughs. "Yeah, I'll get the bull tranquilizer, you guys help me load him into the trunk." 

Tara laughs reluctantly. "Good point." 

"He's getting better," Rick reinstates, firmly. "He's fine." 

Behind the counter, Daryl drops a knife and slices open the palm of his hand. Rick can hear him swear from a few yards away. "Fuck! I cut myself." 

* * *

 

When Rick finally falls asleep, after hours of restless turning and getting the sheets twisted around his legs, he dreams of drowning. He looks up at the water above him, watching the sunlight dance beyond the waves. It’s surprisingly peaceful. He remembers watching interviews of near-drowning victims, and they always say that in your final moments, it’s an incredibly peaceful experience. Until now, Rick called bullshit. But this is serene; his lungs aren’t screaming for air, his muscles aren’t begging him to claw to the surface. He’s just floating in blue, held in suspense, not concerned about gravity or falling or breathing.  

And then, his phone rings.  

Rick attempts to reach for it to shut the ringing off – the blasted ringing that was destroying the peace of drowning – but his arms wouldn’t work. His phone rang and rang, overheating and searing his skin, even in the water. As if on cue, his lungs and muscles began their natural protest, and the sun above him was blocked out by a looming shadow. A voice was trying to reach him through the water, desperate and begging, calling his name. At the same time, the water around Rick turned maroon, filling his nose and mouth with the taste of copper. He was floating in blood.  

“Rick!” The voice called, “Rick, please!”  

In a feat Rick tries struggling to the surface, only for the blood to turn the water around him thick and impossible to swim through. The person, the owner of the voice, whoever they are, continues to plead for help, and Rick’s heart thuds against his chest.  _I’m trying!_  He wants to yell, but when he opens his mouth, the blood runs hot and syrupy down his throat. Choking, Rick blinks until the shadow above him begins forming a face, and the voice shouting for him becomes familiar.  

“Rick, please!” Daryl is calling for him, wrists bleeding out into the water, into Rick’s mouth. His skin is impossibly pale, almost transparent enough for the sun to shine through him. “Rick, I need you, wake up, please, oh god –" 

His phone ringing is what wakes him.  

Rick shoots up, panting like mad, sweat making the sheets cling to his body. He raises a hand to his chest, feeling his heart thud to the vibrations of his phone. Half-heartedly, Rick reaches for his phone, casting a glance to the clock. 4:16 am. Daryl’s contact picture – an image of the two of them kissing in Glenn's pool – makes the screen too bright.  

“Daryl, Jesus Christ, what?” Is Rick’s icy greeting.  

“Rick, please, wake up, I need you.”  

Rick’s dream, still fresh in his disoriented mind, grips at his throat. He can still taste the blood. “What? Daryl, talk to me.” Phone tucked between his ear and his shoulder, Rick fumbles for his clothes, locating his keys on his nightstand. He already knows what this is about.  

“I – need help.” Daryl’s voice sounds different. If Rick wasn’t already acutely aware of the boy’s every mood, every being, he might think it was someone else. But this is still Daryl, no matter how weak, fragile, and  _dead_  his voice sounds. “There’s blood. God, Ricky, there’s so much blood.”  

“Where are you?” Rick is thumping down the stairs, fully aware of waking the entire house.  

“My car, a few blocks away. I thought I could make it to you,” Daryl says. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” 

Rick doesn’t even bother grabbing his keys, instead stuffing a handful of towels under his arm and sprinting out the door. His lungs burn, his teeth feel cold where his tongue is pressed against them, but he does not stop. He keeps Daryl on the phone, not speaking or asking him to speak, just listening to his labored breathing and willing it not to stop. At some point, Rick’s body gives in, and his lungs stop their protests and his throat stops aching. It's his dream in reverse. This time, though, he will make it to Daryl. 

Daryl’s truck is easy to find. The headlights blare through the night, illuminating Rick in their spotlight when he rounds a corner. It’s parked haphazardly on the side of the street, like Daryl just jerked the wheel and didn’t bother with anything. One wheel is up on the curb, tilting it at a weird angle. Daryl hasn’t breathed in a while, his side of the phone still and quiet.  

“Daryl, hey,” Rick skids up to the driver’s window. He doesn’t know why, but he half expected Daryl to be smiling at him when he got there, lopsided and like daylight fireflies. What he sees is a corpse. This isn’t Daryl, but it’s also  _too_  Daryl, and Rick’s entire body locks up. Too pale. Too much blood. Not enough life. “Daryl, please.” 

Daryl’s eyelashes, the long ones that kiss his cheekbones delicately in the mornings, flutter. “Hey, Ricky.” One hand, near-transparent and ghastly, reaches up to feel the skin on Rick’s cheek. “You’re so beautiful, y’know that?” Blood still trickles feebly out of his wrist.  

“Oh, Daryl,” Rick sobs, leaning their foreheads together. “Oh, sweet Daryl.” 

With his mind elsewhere, Rick wraps Daryl’s wrists in the towels, moving him over to the passenger seat with ease. There’s no fight in Daryl left, hell, there’s hardly any blood left. He’s unconscious by the time Rick slams on the gas and tears off in the direction of the hospital.  

Rick should call Maggie. He considers this when he’s already in the hospital parking lot. Carrying Daryl bridal style, like he did once at the lake, smiling and laughing and stepping on dandelions, Rick dashes into through the automatic sliding doors. They take him immediately, rip him from Rick’s arms, and he is so, so alone.  

* * *

 

It's a case of missed time, really.   

Daryl sleeps soundly on the bed in front of Rick, his dreams undisturbed by nightmares for the first time in months. On his wrist, which is tanner than Rick remembers it being, his red rubber band sleeps soundly as well. His arms rest softly on the pristine white sheets, his fingers twitching occasionally. A long row of stitches starts from the end of Daryl's left thumb to nearly the middle of his forearm. The arm with the rubber band is still whole. 

With nothing else to do, Rick allows himself to think – albeit, irrationally. 

Could this have been prevented if Daryl wore a rubber band on each wrist? After all, he cut the one he didn't wear it on. The logical answer is no, one singular rubber band wouldn't have prevented this, but Maggie still isn't here yet and Rick begins to feel like the floor and ceiling are closing in on him. It occurs to him then that he hasn't even replied to his parent's frantic text about why he was rushing out of the house so late.  

 _Had to drive Daryl to the hospital. I'll explain later._  

He hopes the text provides enough information about the situation that they won't press for more or consider how truthful he's being. The clock ticks slowly by, until finally, Maggie is ushered into the room by a reaper in a white cloak.  

She looks stricken, unreal – really. Her face is pale, drained of blood and any emotion that isn't fear. When the doctor who shows her in leaves with a sympathetic glance in Rick's direction, Maggie decides the floor is a better place to deal with this.  

Maggie falls to her knees beside Daryl's bed, sobbing silently into the white sheets, struggling between wanting to hold his hand and run from the room. Rick knows this because, not minutes before, he was her, and she was him, devoid of anything.  

Rick feels sick when Maggie looks up at him, red eyes and snot on her face. "Is he... is he gonna..."  

"I don't... I don't know," Rick says.  

Maggie sniffles. "We... We were so dumb, you know?" She wipes her nose on the back of her hand, leaving streaks of snot and tears on her ivory skin. "Thinking a rubber band could've prevented this." Rick wants so badly to reach out to her, to comfort the gut wrenching force of guilt, but how can he when he hasn't even soothed his own? 

"Yeah..." Rick says, and watches the clock tick onwards. "Come here, Mags." 

And Maggie crawls into his lap – there's only one chair – and they watch Daryl breathe and breathe and breathe.  

* * *

 

"We contacted that brother you told us about," The doctor tells Rick after pulling him out of the room the next morning. Rick scowls, perfectly able to picture Merle on the other line, crude insults thrown over the phone about his unconscious brother. "He's on his way down." 

Rick stares. "You're not gonna let him take him home, are you? Back to the asshole who–" 

The doctor raises a hand. "No, we're going to try and prevent that, Rick. We need to talk to Daryl and Merle about it first, though." 

Frowning, Rick asks, "What other options are there?" 

"Boys homes." The doctor shrugs, not meeting Rick's eye. "At least for the summer." 

"There isn't one within a few hours of here..." Rick says, slowly. The doctor sighs, rubbing the bridge of their nose. They mutter,  _I know_ , and reach out to Rick before thinking better of it and dropping their hand. Now that Rick is alone in the hallway, he allows himself to cry.  

* * *

 

"A boys home?" Maggie squeaks, drawing all the attention in the dining hall to them. She slams her hand over her mouth and ducks her head, repeating quieter: "A boys home? What the fuck, Rick?" 

Rick sighs and rubs the heels of his palms into his eyes. "I don't know, Mags. That's what they said." 

"But..." Maggie breathes. "There's not one around here. The closest one is like three hours away." 

"I know." 

Maggie sits up straight, voice rising again. "Is-is his dad gonna agree to that?" 

Rick shrugs. "Does he have a choice?" 

"Does  _Daryl_?" Maggie asks. "It's his life." 

"I don’t know." 

Maggie sniffles, wiping her nose on her sleeve. Rick rubs his eyes until they hurt. Hours pass and people leave and enter the dining hall, talking in hushed voices and munching on slimy pizza. Rick and Maggie's slices have gone cold along with their hearts.  

Maggie leaves at six in the evening, chasing a text from her father. "Call me, okay?" She says, lips by Rick's ear. Rick nods, squeezes her hand where it rests on his shoulder, and then he's alone.  

At six forty-seven, Merle walks in. He spots Rick after a moment of searching, one that Rick doesn't aid him with because if he can put off interaction with Merle Dixon, he sure as hell will. "Hey, Daryl wants to see you." Merle saunters around the table, raising an eyebrow at their untouched pizza. "Y'all gonna finish that?" 

Rick wrinkles his nose. "All yours, Merle." 

"Sick." 

The hallways in the hospital are empty at this hour. Moved from his room in the ER, Daryl now rests in a room on the third floor with a window facing the west. When Rick walks in, the sun is setting, and everything is orange and pink. Daryl is reading  _Catcher_ , head bent and eyebrows knitted together, staring at the pages with such intense focus Rick hardly recognizes him. He feels bad for interrupting, but he doesn't, also.  

"Hey." Rick tentatively lowers himself into the seat beside Daryl's bed. "How're you feeling?" 

Daryl smiles. "Fine. Did you eat?" 

"Yeah." Rick lies.  

Daryl frowns. "You're lying. Why didn't you eat?" 

"I wasn't hungry." 

"Rick–" 

" _Daryl_." Rick grows more annoyed by the second. Daryl slumps his shoulders in defeat. "Did you talk to the doctor or lawyer or whoever?" 

"Yeah." Daryl plays with a loose thread of his blanket that was once pristine before knowing his nervous habits.  

"Well?" 

Daryl pauses. He's calculating his words, turning them over in that pretty little head of his – that Rick knows. It's comforting, really, to see Daryl so alive. He already knows the answer.  

"I can't go back there, Rick," Daryl says slowly. "I just... I can't." 

"I know," Rick whispers. "I don't want you to, either. I want what's best for you." 

Daryl chews on his lip. "You know what that is, right?" 

"Do you?" 

"For the second time in my life, yeah, I do."  

Rick leans back in the chair, fighting back tears. "You know you'll be three hours away? We won't see each other until next year, Daryl." 

Daryl sniffles. "I know." It's silent. Daryl's lip is bleeding with how he chews it.  

"It's gonna be hard," Rick points out needlessly. Can they even fucking handle that? They saw each other every day and it was still hard. A terrifying thought invades his mind.  _Is it even worth it?_  Of course it is, he immediately knocks away the idea.  

"It doesn't have to be," Daryl says. He watches Rick, expression unreadable, eyes dry and mouth straight. Once again, someone voices Rick's fears for him. "Rick, is it even worth it?"  

"No, Daryl, don't do this," Rick laughs humorlessly. "Don't do this now." 

"Rick, fucking look at us." Daryl gestures wildly around the room. "Rick, I'm no good for you. You  _know_  that, Rick." 

"Fucking stop, Daryl. We don't have to do this." Rick is near hysterics, fear rising in his throat, bubbling in his belly, stampeding in his mind.  

"I want you to be happy, Rick." 

"I  _am_ fucking happy," Rick insists. So why does it feel so fucking forced? He's crying now, the tears streaming down his face freely, and still Daryl remains stoic. "Are you?" 

"Of course," Daryl whispers. "Rick, I love you so much." 

"Then why are you–" 

"Because I want what's best for you!" Daryl shouts, fists balled in the sheets. Now he cries, too, silent, angry, desperate tears. Rick finds some sick comfort in knowing this is hurting him, too. "And I'm not it. I'm just not, Rick. And being three hours away won't make us any better." 

Rick laughs wetly. "So this is fucking it?" 

Daryl hangs his head and doesn't answer. They sit in silence for a long time, until the sun is long set, and the stars above them weep as well. Rick recalls a time when they laid out under the open sky in Maggie's yard, and everything felt huge and suffocating at the same time. Daryl tasted like sadness and youth, like grass and vodka, and everything good in the world.  

And they both lied, to themselves and each other, about the future and taking it on together. Back then, Rick didn't think he was lying, and Daryl probably didn't, either. But here they are. 

Finally, only when Rick feels like he can speak without cutting up his tongue, he asks. 

"What was the first time?" 

Daryl looks away from the window. "What?" 

"You said this was the second time you knew for sure what was best for you. What was the first?" 

Daryl doesn't cry again. "Kissing you that first time. Under the bleachers." 

Rick nods. "Yeah." He gets up. "Yeah." 

He leaves without saying goodbye.  

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> omg and i may or may not be the biggest catcher fan. the book got me through some really hard times and i imagine it'd get daryl through them, too.
> 
> also im really sorry, lol

**Author's Note:**

> On a scale of one to messy, how messy was that


End file.
